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The concept that life was going to be easy was something that I admittedly had back when I was a kid. Being supposedly gifted by acing tests and not needing to study did that to most people, I suppose. Even up until high school, I didn\'t really put much effort into my studies, mostly just skating by the barest minimum in order to pass through the curriculum.

Then college came and promptly kicked my ass into submission.

Understandably, it got whittled down the older I got. There was only so much that raw talent could do for you. In the end, hard work will always pay off even against the laziest geniuses in the bunch. Still, a niggling thought of it still persists inside me even today. I could still see ways in which some tasks would only need the barest minimum to succeed, and I could even tell whether or not an exam was easy even if I didn\'t study for it all and flunked it hard. Well, at least I thought I did. Then again, why was I even talking about this again?

Oh, right. Lewis was stonewalling us hard.

"That\'s like, what, the fifth time we died?"

"Stop rubbing it in, Moriya... I thought for sure it was going to work..."

I couldn\'t help but chuckle at how Guidance pouted at my words. She looked so cute even if she was fuming at me. Granted, that could possibly translate to me not sharing a bed with her after all of this was over, but for now, it was a decent morale boost that I\'d happily take after what felt like hours of non-progress.

"So stopping that bulk up move at the last second would also trigger Enrage," she groaned in annoyance, shaking her head as she sighed. "Just why did I put that stupid mechanic into this game in the first place?"

"Uhm, because you secretly like it?"

The dev dangerously glared at me before she sighed. "I hate that you\'re right... It\'s still a good mechanic. I just wished it wasn\'t hard coded to trigger whenever we try to break the fight."

"That\'s assuming we can even break it," I pointed out. "We\'ve been trying to find another strategy to stop him from bulking up for the past few runs now, and that\'s only because we\'re running into a dead end of us lacking any damage to out DPS his healing."

That was the main problem the two of us were facing right now. With us only being two people instead of a full party, there was no feasible way for us to deal damage to him fast enough before he would just inevitably heal them all away. We couldn\'t outpace that damn sandwich of his no matter how hard we tried, and we even tried forgoing healing for a single run just to see if we\'d be able to at least bring him down below fifty percent.

"Haven\'t we proven that we can do just that if this sandwich denial thing didn\'t work?" she questioned. "We did bring him down below sixty before he started bulking up again."

"I don\'t think that counts, Guidance," I sighed. "In the end, we\'re just too weak, or rather, I\'m too weak to outlast his health."

As much as I would like to deny it, that was simply the truth. I was still woefully underleveled against this guy. I was a mere level 36, while both Guidance and Lewis were comfortably sitting at level 50. With such a massive level disadvantage, it was no wonder that we weren\'t doing any damage.

"That\'s just you coping with your low damage," Guidance scoffed. "The game shouldn\'t have let you enter this instance if you didn\'t meet the minimum requirements to beat it."

"And since when did that code work properly, I might ask?"

Guidance turned to me with a prolonged squint. Glaring at me for a few seconds, she eventually wilted at my own stare as she sighed, "Sorry..."

"It\'s fine," I sighed, shaking my head. "Let\'s just get back to the task at hand and see if we can beat this guy?"

"Right," she nodded. "Shall we review what we\'ve learned?"

I couldn\'t help but chuckle as I started our strategy session. "For one, we can\'t target the sandwich. It just makes him angrier and have him wipe us off the map."

"We also can\'t shield against that tank buster of his," Guidance added, referring to the [STAMP] move that Lewis always used after a while. "Even your [Shroud] won\'t work against it."

"Which is a pain, but understandable if we were a full party," I groaned in annoyance. "I still hate that an invulnerability move deliberately doesn\'t work on certain moves."

"That\'s to preserve balance and avoid fights getting cheesed, unfortunately," Guidance shrugged. "Still, it\'s supposed to be manageable if there are two healers on the party."

"Which we don\'t have, I might remind you," I chuckled. "Anything else?"

"Well, beyond the [Fire Blade] actually being easy to dodge, I don\'t think there\'s anything too pressing that we forgot. Sure, we might\'ve not even seen everything that he could do, but that comes in time when we\'ve actually managed to bring him down below half health."

I nodded in resignation. I guess that was just the way things will have to roll for us. "So we\'ll just have to wing it again, huh..."

"Not necessarily," she quickly denied. "We can always try that one thing again."

"You mean us just ducking and firing out attacks at every chance we can get?" I scoffed. "Aren\'t we doing that already?"

"Well, yes, but take it a step further, I mean," she explained herself. "So far, every time we dodge, we focus more on keeping ourselves alive than to try and squeeze in an attack or so."

And that was just the way it was meant to be if we wanted to survive. If either of us wanted to be greedy and try to attack while running away, it would slow us down just enough for Lewis\'s attack to clip us. We would then take unnecessary damage, which would be even worse for me since I need as much health as I possibly could to keep myself sustainable.

"Are you suggesting we try being greedy again?" I skeptically questioned her. "Didn\'t that not work the last time?"

"Well, maybe it\'ll work this time," she defended herself. "We know more about his patterns now than the last time we did it, and we can maybe try and squeeze out a bit more efficiency from our movements now that we know where exactly we can safely stand in the arena."

I let out a small hum as I let my eyes wander around us. Sure enough, after trying to kill this man for quite some time, some spots in the arena started becoming much safer than others. Sticking to the edges would usually keep me safe whenever Lewis would try that AoE attack of his around him while sticking close to him would make it laughably easy to avoid that [Papercut] attack. It wasn\'t much, but there was merit to them.

"Okay then. Let\'s try that."

"Right."

Giving each other one last nod, I aimed my pistols at the man and fired my opening salvo.

[*BANG! BANG! BANG!*]

[ENEMY HP: 95%]

Using the usual combo of [Blood Shot], [Iron Spread], and [Hemolysis], Lewis\'s health immediately went down by five just as he bore down on top of me.

[SILENCE: 44%]

"Shield us!"

"[Adloqium]!"

Guidance quickly did as she was told, giving each of us a decent shield as Lewis\'s opening move gave us what was probably the most annoying debuff in the entire world.

[STATUS: SILENCED: 30 SECONDS]

"Welp, do we just dodge for now?" I sarcastically asked my partner from the other side of the arena.

"What else do you think we should do then?" she scoffed, her [Manifest] utterly useless while the debuff was in effect. "You\'re not regening fast enough to attack, and I can\'t even do sh1t right now."

"Cursing is unbecoming of you, kid."

[PAPERCUT: 46%]

Still silenced, I watched Guidance deftly move out of the [Papercut]\'s way, partly using her keyboard as a makeshift shield as she covered her face as a contingency plan.

[BULK UP: 32%]

"And there goes his health again," I groaned.

"Unless you want to just wipe, then go ahead and shoot it," Guidance scoffed.

[ENEMY HP: 145%]

I rolled my eyes in annoyance as I saw Lewis\'s bar go up for the umpteenth time. Because of course that was going to happen.

"That was delicious," the old man nodded in satisfaction. "Now where were we?"

Looking at Guidance, she only gave me an exasperated look as she shook her head. "Why are you looking at me like this is all my fault?"

[PAPERCUT: 88%]

I chuckled as I returned her exasperation with a cheeky smirk, "Uhh, because it is? Granted, it\'s still us-"

"You\'re both distracted."

Lewis\'s words drew me back to reality, and my eyes widened at the orange glow radiating underneath our feet. I didn\'t see this attack happening! "Wha-"

[*FWOOSH!*]

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