World’s Strongest Became the Game’s Weakest Villain

"W-what do you mean?" Dawn asked.

"Ah, I kinda knew it but I'm interested in the details too!" Titania said. Thinking of it, I had never explained everything to her. Our connection made it so that she could figure out most things about me and I could figure out most things about her, but the details had to be told in the end.

"Alright, I'll tell you too."

"W-who are you talking with?" Dawn asked, still surprised.

"It's my companion, the fairy!"

"The cutest fairy!"

"Right, the cutest fairy."

Dawn froze in place. She raised her quaking fingers and pointed at my shoulders. "S-she's there?"

This lady sure stuttered a lot for someone so much older than me.

"Right here," I said.

"You can summon a fairy...?" Her words weren't pointed at me as she clasped her forehead and fell on the wall again.

"Summon? Aren't you more like, living here?"

"Yup, yup," Titania nodded. "Because we're both super strong."

Dawn's shock only increased with my words. How fun.

In the end, I decided to give her a break and switched to the matter at hand.

Slowly, I explained everything about myself. It didn't take long, but it was tough to find the right words. I told the two a bit about my life as Eugene and the stuff here, but I refrained from mentioning anything about the game.

Titania seemed to have noticed that I was hiding something, but didn't say much about it.

Was this a game world? I didn't think so.

I couldn't see the people here as characters in a game, I couldn't see myself as one either. In my eyes, this world turned on its own, its people breathed on their own, and they dreamed on their own.

How could a world like that be 'just a game'?

To me, this world and this life were all real, authentic. I didn't think much of it being the setting for a game, that didn't change what my life was, after all.

The short yet long conversation came to an end and Dawn and I were left shoulder to shoulder in the quiet passageway.

"This regressor thing," I spoke, but Dawn interrupted right after.

"You don't have to be worried. I don't think the regressors will have anything to do with you."

That was reassuring.

"And, why did you become an adventurer?" I asked.

"Adventurers are usually at the heart of all trouble. I thought this would be the best way to find the regressors."

After that, I sighed and clapped my hands. I pushed myself up and stretched a bit.

My mana and Ki had greatly recovered after the rest.

"Let's get to the reward room quick and leave this place then," I said, stretching my hand out to Dawn. "I'll let you know if I ever run into a regressor, alright?"

The regressors didn't seem to be a problem for me. I could lend her a hand.

.

.

.

If only I knew back then, that the regressors were a problem for no one but me.

***

Dawn and I then coursed through the rest of the floors. With two people fighting together, we managed to take on a bunch of monsters each and handle things well. From Harpies to Arachnes and Lamias, we killed everything in our way over the next two days and at last.

A passageway behind the waterfall on the eighty-ninth floor led downward.

We entered the dark passageway and passed through the incline before entering a narrow room at the bottom.

"Ninetieth floor..." Dawn muttered.

I had already read up on the ninetieth floor back outside, there should have been a whole troupe of the three monsters ready to face us, all of them at the peak of their species.

But, there was no one here.

"Are you ready, Dawn?" I asked, holding my breath.

There wasn't a sign of life here. The troupe that should have been in this place had disappeared.

It could only point to one thing.

One of those bastards had eaten all of them.

This place that should have been an ambush spot had turned into a poison jar for all the monsters in here. A Gu cultivating the strongest of the three species.

A mixture of them.

Just as I stepped deeper into the place, the world trembled.

"It's here..." Titania announced, flying up a distance from me.

I pulled out my sword and another potion from my bag.

A booster I had received on the fiftieth floor that could temporarily enhance my agility.

I quickly gulped half of the potion and tossed the rest toward Dawn.

Right then, a crack appeared in the ground in front of us.

I lowered my stance, my breathing sharp.

The blue and green light of the cave dimmed as if announcing the approach of the monster.

"GRAH!"

A scream resounded and I jumped toward a wall. Right where I was standing, a tail came peering out of the ground.

Dawn jumped away too as another attack came at her.

One, two, five, nine tails.

The body of the monster peered out of the ground. Countless, sharp appendages emerged from the ground first while the giant body of a human followed, its sides riddled with the legs of the Arachne and nine tails of Lamia's all sticking to its back.

Giant wings and ten eyes. Its mouth transformed into a wing.

An amalgamation of the best of the three species.

The five meters tall monster stood tall in front of us. Its appendages shrunk and its beak opened.

"KYAAAAAHHH!"

The monster screamed, and the battle kicked off.

Dawn pulled out her weapon at once and charged toward the monster.

"[Honeycomb Defense: Hexagonal Shieldsx100]"

A hundred shields formed in thin air and spread around the cave as Dawn charged into the monster.

Her staff swiveled in the air as she curved it around. She jumped up, I boosted her with a shield and pushed her further.

Immediately, she swung her weapon down on the monster's eyes—

"Ptui!"

—The monster spat.

All my shields converged in front of Dawn and blocked the acidic spit, a dozen of them melted while the force of the spit pushed the shields back and they crashed into Dawn, sending her flying away.

This...

This was going to be tough.