The Boss Wants to Die

Chapter 9

The Boss Wants to Die

I gave a flat refusal.

“I already have a party member.”

I tried to brush past him, savoring the lingering taste of the strawberry milk I had just drank, but the archer clung to me persistently.

“Really? Even better! What class is your party member, by the way?”

“A priest, but…”

‘Can he even be called a priest, though?’

Oblivious to my inner turmoil, the archer’s spirits were already soaring through a field of flowers.

“If he’s a priest, that means he’s a healer!”

In any game, healers were precious.

What a jackpot! Pure joy shone in the archer’s eyes.

“Where is the healer?”

“Right behind you.”

When I pointed behind him, the novice archer spun around, his face beaming with excitement.

“Gah!”

And then he leaped back in sheer terror.

He was startled first by Akt’s massive build, and shocked a second time by an entirely different issue.

“W-Why do you have a slime…?”

His face contorted in agony, Akt was sweating profusely while balancing a slime on top of his head.

“Ppu-ing ppu-ing?”

Jiggling like pudding atop Akt’s white hair, the green slime let out a mindless sound.

Low-level though it was, a slime was still a monster and had quite a bit of bulk.

As a result, with the slime’s viscous body oozing down over his face, Akt looked like he might suffocate at any second.

“D-Do you need some help, by any chance?”

“No. I put it on my head on purpose.”

‘That only makes it weirder.’

Even though he saw me shaking my head, Akt—whose skin was thicker than steel—calmly asked:

“Did you need something from my party member?”

With that, he rummaged through his inventory with one hand and pulled out a carton of strawberry milk.

“Want some more? I bought two just in case.”

Honestly, I wanted to pat his head and praise him.

Barely holding myself back, I slyly snatched the milk from him.

Poking the straw in, I examined Akt’s face, but he didn’t seem to be mocking me.

Secretly relieved, I drank the milk.

Mmm.

It’s so good, as always!

“Ah, well, I was hoping to form a party…”

The archer stepped back even further as he answered.

It was because Akt was panting heavily like a minotaur, with that terribly heavy mass of liquid perched right on his head.

“Eep…”

The archer seemed completely terrified by his bizarre behavior.

Yet, perhaps thinking he couldn’t let such a great opportunity slip away, he steeled himself and tried to talk again.

“Ahem, cough! Our levels are similar, so how about hunting together?”

“Sorry. I won’t be hunting slimes anymore.”

“Huh?”

“It’s hard to hunt while balancing a slime on my head, you see.”

So why are you carrying it on your head in the first place?

Stricken by this fundamental question, the archer asked cautiously.

“May I ask why…?”

“Because I have to carry this guy on my head to get what I want.”

“What?”

“Unlike the others, this one’s drop is a bright yellow-green, right?”

“And…?”

“That’s the mark.”

What kind of nonsense is he about to spout this time?

The archer looked bewildered.

“If you carry this guy around and shout ‘Buy some rice cakes!’ twenty times, a hidden monster will—”

“Haha! Excuse me!”

Thoroughly convinced he was dealing with a lunatic, the archer fled at high speed.

He even activated the ‘Wings of Wind’ skill to boost his movement speed; he couldn’t have bolted any faster.

“After I went through the trouble of explaining it, too.”

Akt caught his breath, his face pale and bluish enough to make me worry his neck might snap and kill him.

I wanted to crawl into a rat hole from embarrassment, but with the open plains stretching in every direction, that wish seemed far out of reach.

“If you didn’t want to party, you could’ve just said no. Did you really have to embarrass us like that?”

“Hm?”

“Why lie?”

“Do you think it’s a lie?”

He chuckled, wiping away the sweat trickling down his neck.

His expression looked quite roguish.

‘So he can make a face like that, too.’

His face, already decadently handsome, looked all the more alluring with wet strands of hair clinging to his sweat-sheened skin.

Is this the power of a good-looking face?

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“It’s nothing.”

I brushed it off and waved my hand.

Fortunately, Akt walked out into the field without another word.

Drawing weird looks from every surrounding player, Akt paced around balancing the slime.

To make matters worse, the moment he started muttering, “Buy some rice cakes,” the terrified beginners cleared out entirely.

Even from a hundred meters away, he looked like a player who had completely lost his mind.

Soon, the field was completely deserted without a single soul in sight.

“What a total public nuisance… Huh?”

I rubbed my eyes as something materialized like a mirage right in front of Akt, who was telling people to buy rice cakes.

“Is that a tiger?”

It was a tiger.

A real tiger!

[Warning! The hidden monster ‘Hungry Tiger’ has appeared!

― Summoner: Akt Hevgenia]

‘What, it was real?!’

Why on earth is that real?

And rice cakes? That’s way too Eastern! This setting is Western fantasy!

While I still doubted my eyes, the tiger raised both forepaws high in a menacing stance.

“Give me a piece of rice cake, and I won’t eat you!”

‘No matter how I look at it, this is bizarre!’

It clashed so heavily with the game that its out-of-place nature stuck out like a sore thumb.

Unlike me, who was utterly appalled, Akt offered the slime to the tiger without hesitation, as if he were used to it.

“Oho! A delicious mugwort rice cake!”

‘That’s a slime! It’s just green, but it’s completely translucent!’

The blind-as-a-bat tiger eagerly took the slime and swallowed it whole. And then…

“Gack! Cough, hack! Urk.”

It choked and collapsed.

It was an absurd spectacle that made me question my own vision.

The system window that popped up next was even more ridiculous.

[Congratulations! Akt Hevgenia has unlocked a legendary class!]

“What?!”

[Achievement Unlocked! Discoverer of the Slime’s Secret!]

“What in the…”

[Having defeated a hidden monster, your level increases dramatically.]

[Akt Hevgenia’s level has increased by 1.]

[Akt Hevgenia’s level has increased by 1.]

.

.

[Akt Hevgenia has reached level 30. Second Class Advancement is now available.]

Dumbfounded, I stared at the system notifications cascading before my eyes like a stream of bug logs.

As if that weren’t dizzying enough, an additional special window glowing with pink light popped up.

[Akt Hevgenia has advanced to the legendary class, ‘Priest of the Beginning.’]

[Priest of the Beginning.

A priest who maintained the balance of the world on behalf of the Main God. Disposes of byproducts created from side effects of creation.

You can advance to this class once the first byproduct is eliminated.

― First Byproduct (Bug): Tiger that mistook a slime for a rice cake

― Bug Code: Consciousness of ‘—’

― Debugging Complete]

‘Huh?’

Reading down the game description, my eyes widened at the out-of-nowhere mention of realistic bugs.

Reading closely, it seemed to say that Akt had fixed a bug.

The problem was that it felt far too much like actual game content to assume Akt was a programmer who fixed it.

‘Is it just a class mechanic?’

Like a class concept inspired by debugging…

I was completely in the dark.

‘No matter how I look at him, Akt doesn’t look like game staff.’

I shrugged, dismissing it with the thought that it was probably just a quirky trait of a legendary class.

‘Even that bug code is weird. It’s gotta be just a class concept. Even if it’s super bizarre…’

Is this just what a trash game is like…?

‘Still, isn’t this put together way too carelessly?’

I narrowed my eyes, lost in thought.

It was suspicious how Akt knew the unlock condition for a legendary class.

‘Did he buy it from an Information Guild?’

If it were the condition to acquire a legendary class, even an Information Guild wouldn’t sell it.

They would’ve used it for themselves instead.

Ding!

[A Legendary Class Quest has arrived!]

[Akt Hevgenia has accepted the quest: ‘Edify the Worshippers of the Evil God.’]

[Unable to view quest details. Please receive the quest directly to check the details. Navigation to the relevant NPC has begun.

― Route viewer: Akt Hevgenia]

Too exhausted to even be surprised anymore, I stared at the quest window with soulless eyes.

“What’s the point of asking someone who’s partied with the Evil God to do the edifying…?”

This game was definitely doomed.

‘Still, he’s already level 30. That at least is a positive development.’

Shaking off my petty worries, I walked over to Akt, who was sprawled out flat on the ground.

“What are you doing? Lying on the ground like that. Get up. Go level up some more.”

“Sorry. I think I’m about to fall asleep.”

“What?”

Without answering my earnest call, Akt let his eyes slide shut.

It looked as if he were drifting into eternal rest.

“H-Hold on! Hey! Get up!”

[As a condition of acquiring the legendary class, Akt Hevgenia’s stamina temporarily becomes 0.]

[Akt Hevgenia faints.]

“What am I supposed to do with you fainting right here? You giant lump! Don’t pass out! Wake up!”

An Evil God didn’t pass out even with 0 stamina, but apparently ordinary players were different.

I shook the bear-sized Akt by the shoulders and even pinched his nose shut, but he remained unconscious and didn’t open his eyes.

“Should I just abandon him?”

A powerful urge gripped me.

But he was my sole possibility of getting killed; I couldn’t leave him here.

“Heart.”

“Yes, Evil God-nim!”

Popping out from the shadow, the bat familiar replied warmly and hopped right onto my shoulder.

“Heart. Stop calling me Evil God. It stands out.”

“What should I call you then?”

“Just Master. I’m your summoner, after all.”

“Yes, Master! I shall correct myself! How may I assist you?”

“Grab his collar in your teeth.”

Blinking its single heart-shaped eye repeatedly, Heart swallowed hard as it looked at Akt’s mountain-like bulk.