CHAPTER 45: FAIRY’S CORE

The Dryad did not wait for further conversation.

Her branches whipped down like spears.

SWISH—SWISH—CRACK

I rolled to the side. The ground where I stood moments ago fractured like cracked shale. If one of those hit my spine — I’d snap in half like a twig.

Roots surged from the ground next — thick as a python, writhing to entangle me.

"Movement Arts — burst."

My body blurred to the side as I sprinted at an oblique angle, barely slipping past the snapping tendrils. Even then — the tip of one root grazed my back, ripping fabric and drawing blood.

"Gh—!"

Pain flared. My breath stuttered.

She wasn’t strong — she wasn’t fast —

She was overwhelmingly oppressive.

A field–control monster.

A boss that turned the battlefield into her personal womb.

And the problem?

My stamina and mana were dogshit.

Two minutes of pure evasion already had my lungs burning again.

[ Binding Vines ]

Her voice echoed — and the boss room floor erupted.

thousands of roots crawled like awakened snakes.

This — I couldn’t dodge.

Unless—

I slammed a mana bullet into the chamber — not anti-spore — but piercing type.

I fired downwards.

BOOM—!

The recoil jolted through my shoulders as the blast disrupted the roots directly beneath me, sending splinters and dirt flaring upward. The sudden explosion loosened the terrain, breaking the core formation of her binding skill.

I used that split second to dash sideways while she momentarily staggered.

She growled — the branches quivered violently.

[... Insolent pest. ]

Then her upper torso — the humanoid part — raised her hand.

Light gathered there — dense, thick, pulsing.

She wasn’t just a brute.

She used magic too.

A sphere of emerald energy formed — so dense it made my skin prickle.

[ Nature’s Heart — Lance ]

A beam of condensed mana tore through the air — vaporizing plants, rock, air — everything in a straight line.

PSHHHHHHHHHHH—!

I barely — barely — ducked under it.

If I had been even a fraction slower — I’d be a pile of ash.

"That’s not even funny—!"

My heart hammered hard enough to crack ribs.

This Dryad wasn’t just C–rank. She was borderline B.

I crouched low, panting — then inhaled deeply.

Focus.

I wasn’t going to win by damage.

I couldn’t brute-force her HP bar.

I had to exploit the mechanic.

Behind the humanoid torso — embedded in the tree trunk like a beating heart — there was a faint glowing knot of wood. In the game, that was her internal mana core.

Every Dryad had one.

Break it — instant kill.

I loaded my last trump card.

A Mana–Piercer Slug Round — the single most expensive bullet I bought all week.

I steadied my breathing.

Detection skill sharpened my senses — trajectories, breathing rhythm, branch angles — everything slowed as if submerged underwater.

The Dryad noticed.

Her eyes widened — she lifted both arms — every branch in the chamber aimed at me at once.

She was going to erase me in one all–out volley.

I whispered:

"Not today."

I sprinted toward her — straight into the storm.

THWACK—WHIP—CRACK—PING—

Branches shattered stone around me — sliced air — one grazed my left cheek, another clipped my forearm — blood sprayed.

Movement Arts strained every tendon — my vision blurred from speed.

And then —

I jumped.

Midair.

Gun raised.

Straight at her exposed core.

The Dryad screamed.

[...NO—!!]

The world narrowed into a single moment.

I pulled the trigger.

BOOM.

The mana slug drilled through bark, through wood, through her central vein of mana — and exploded inside.

The explosion was silent.

Just a pulse of glowing green — like a heart stopping.

The Dryad froze.

Branches halted mid–air.

Her glowing eyes flickered...

and went dark.

Then the entire colossal body collapsed — slow — heavy — the way a dying sequoia would fall after centuries.

THUDDDDDDDDDDD—

Silence.

My knees buckled.

Sweat ran down my neck.

"...holy shit..."

I won.

Barely.

Hell — if she’d had one more minute — I’d have been fertilizer.

The system window popped into view.

━━━━━━━━━━━

[BOSS DEFEATED]

+1200 Points

━━━━━━━━━━━

I exhaled shakily... then slowly grinned.

"Barely... but a win is a win."

Now — time to collect that fruit.

I approached the Dryad’s main body, the entire structure already brittle and grey. Her root–mass had shriveled as soon as I detonated the core. I sifted through the withered trunk and pried aside a cracked layer of bark — and there it was.

A fist–sized crystal embedded deep in the heartwood, gleaming faintly like dew trapped inside polished emerald.

The jewel I came for.

I reached in and plucked it free.

A chimed window flickered.

━━━━━━━━━━━

[ Fairy’s Core] — Grade: Rare

A crystallized mana gland formed through centuries of growth.

Consuming it permanently increases Mana capacity.

Effect: Mana +10 (Permanent)

━━━━━━━━━━━

Perfect.

Exactly as the game’s data said.

Even though this was only a rare grade core — items that gave permanent stat boosts were beyond priceless. Hunters would kill each other over a common rank stat fruit. Something like this would sell for tens of thousands of gold even just for research.

But I wasn’t selling it.

This was for me — for my pathetic mana stat of 4.

I stored the core inside my pouch. No reason to linger here. Just because the boss was dead didn’t mean the dungeon was "safe." Boss rooms were still inside the anomaly bubble — and stray spawns could still occur.

I retraced my steps along the same path I used for entry.

By the time I stepped out of the spatial rift, the sky was dark.

"...Seriously. How much time did I spend in there?"

Time always moved strangely inside these places. Spatial distortion wasn’t just about space — it twisted temporal flow too. Some dungeons doubled time. Some halved it. Some fluctuated minute by minute.

Hunters argued endlessly about whether it was rule, or chaos, or some kind of dungeon ecology.

Regardless — today’s disparity wasn’t too bad.

I dusted off my coat, let out a long exhale, and waved down the first carriage I saw.

"City district. South market block."

The coachman flicked the reins, and we rolled off.

I leaned back against the cushion, one hand resting unconsciously over my inner coat pocket... right where the Fairy’s Core lay inside the pouch.

Heh.

One step closer.

Now — I could actually cast magic myself.