Dusk (BL Light Novel)

[Party] MinchanStopShittingPlease: Ah fuck
As if on cue, the Assassin Minchan who got smacked by the tail went flying with a massive knockback. He was flung all the way to the far end and left in a groggy state, completely immobilized.
Shit, we’re fucked. That was the first thing that came to mind. And right then, the scorpion that had been targeting the tank gleamed its eyes and turned its body in a new direction.

That was because Boss #2 had a hidden mechanic where, if a target moved too far away, it would ignore aggro and slam down on them with a leap skill.
The scorpion twisted its body and launched straight into the air, aiming to vertically drop onto Minchan the ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) Assassin who’d just been blown back. If that asshole died, the whole run was as good as ruined. Since we’d gone with solo healing, the boss had to be taken down as quickly as possible to minimize the accumulating poison debuff over time. But if our main DPS dropped and our damage fell short?
That would only increase the already crushing burden on the healer. No matter what kind of clutch show Gonyanyanya pulled, healing would become flat-out impossible.

Reflexively, I hit the skill Oath of the Guardian, which lets me take damage in place of a party member—but it didn’t activate, because I was currently in Destroyer stance. Not that it would’ve helped anyway—he was out of range.
Were we really going to let a newbie’s hard-earned effort go to waste like this?
Just then, Gonyanyanya didn’t panic—instead, she pulled off a brilliant play. Using her movement skill, dodge skill, and emergency evasion all at once, she dashed toward the direction Minchan had been knocked back and barely managed to land an instant heal on him at the last possible second.

Minchan’s HP, which had been shredded from the tail hit, filled right back up—only to be smashed down again by the scorpion’s leap. He barely had enough health left to stay alive. If she’d been even a second late, he’d be dead.
Having narrowly survived, Minchan shook off his groggy state, used a skill, and sped back to the main formation. The immediate crisis was averted.
But it wasn’t time to relax just yet. Because Minchan got knocked away, the scorpion had chased him, which in turn put it farther away from the main tank who had been holding position up front. Thanks to that hidden mechanic, the scorpion was now going to leap back toward the main tank for another slam.
And that’s if it only stopped there. The tank might be able to survive one hit. The problem was Gonyanyanya, who’d burned all her evasion skills and was now just hoofing it.

Minchan could quickly return using a skill, but Gonyanyanya, who’d already used up everything, was still sprinting back from the long distance Minchan had been knocked to. The scorpion’s leap was faster than it looked. It could easily smash the tank and then immediately pounce on Gonyanyanya next.
If that happened, until either the tank or Gonyanyanya could properly regain position, the scorpion would keep bouncing between the two, hitting both. And if Gonyanyanya couldn’t survive a leap slam? That’d be a wipe.
I moved my fingers to a skill shortcut I barely even use anymore. Before the scorpion could land on the tank, I aimed at Gonyanyanya and cast Honor of the Savior. It was the inverse of the Executor’s Shackles—a Saint-exclusive Destroyer stance skill that pulled a party member directly to me.

Right as the airborne scorpion slammed its pincers down on the tank, Gonyanyanya was pulled to me in a flash of glowing light. A moment later, the scorpion gleamed its eyes, searched for another nearby target, and upon finding none close enough, gave up and calmly resumed clashing with the tank.
Holy shit, that almost blew up. I let out a breath of relief.
If Gonyanyanya hadn’t reacted so fast, if she hadn’t landed her heal, if I hadn’t made that split-second call—we’d be looking at an actual wipe, not just a hypothetical. And all because a max-level DPS player, too full of himself to consider the party’s situation, wanted to pad his damage numbers and treated the healer like some expendable servant.

I stopped holding back and went full DPS without caring about aggro. I wanted to kill the scorpion fast so Gonyanyanya could finally stop healing under pressure. Eventually, when aggro shifted to me, I took front line. The main tank, sharp as ever, noticed and quietly used Breath Control to lower his aggro before sidestepping out of the boss’s frontal range.
This was a low-level dungeon with stat sync, sure—but even so, my HP and defense were way above what a level 44 tank had, and I was blocking every basic hit with full mitigation, which probably made healing easier. The fight stabilized a bit. Not that it was normal—just better than before.
The following mechanics came at us like a storm, but Gonyanyanya somehow managed to stay on top of healing. Once I upped my DPS even more, the boss's HP started plummeting, and before long, the scorpion collapsed. As it fell, the clouds of pollen vanished like morning mist, and the poison debuff disappeared from the status window.

When I clicked to inspect Gonyanyanya—who’d pulled off a clean first-try clear—I saw that she had 18 stacks of the Stress debuff. She'd come back from the brink of death.
[Party] Honeybread: lol
[Party] Honeybread: Minchan’s little friends
[Party] Honeybread: Get out
[Party] MinchanThat’sNotIt: ?

It wasn’t like I was trying to dogpile on someone for a single mistake. Like I said earlier—everyone makes mistakes.
But if they only started dodging mechanics during Boss #2, that meant they could have all along and just coasted through Boss #1 by dumping their burden on the healer while padding their DPS. That’s not something I was going to let slide. What, is the healer your servant?
[Party] Honeybread: I get it—you sacrificed the healer just to get your free DPS. Nice. 👍
[Party] Honeybread: Vote to kick. Everyone agree.

[Party] MinchanStopShittingPlease: ?
[Party] MinchanThat’sNotIt: lmfao you’re seriously doing a kick vote?
I selected Minchan the Assassin from the party list and initiated a kick vote. I’d boot both of them if I could, but kick votes only work one at a time.
We needed a majority vote to succeed, but if the rest of the party had any sense, they’d agree. Those assholes practically bled a first-timer healer dry for their own selfish plays. Even after I called them out, they didn’t learn. They just kept pushing for one more hit like nothing happened—nearly wiped the whole run. Why the hell should I carry them?
[Party] Honeybread: If you’re gonna force a solo-heal setup for DPS greed, the least you can do is pull your weight.
[Party] Honeybread: Don’t leech off the healer like you do your parents.

[Party] MinchanThat’sNotIt: Goddamn virtue-signaling prick, get off your soapbox lmao
Perfect timing—the vote passed, and the Assassin Minchan was kicked. The other Minchan ragequit on his own. Guess his pride couldn’t take getting kicked outright.
With the Minchans gone, I got party lead and opened recruitment to fill the gaps. DPS matched instantly, and healers were in higher supply than most games, so it wouldn’t take long.

While waiting in the now quiet dungeon, I got a whisper notification.
[Whisper] Gonyanyanya2 >> Honeybread: Was I okay…?
A suspicious newbie. Guess she was giddy over her performance in Boss #2, waiting for praise.

[Whisper] Honeybread >> Gonyanyanya2: Yeah
[Whisper] Honeybread >> Gonyanyanya2: Best newbie priest I’ve ever run with
[Whisper] Gonyanyanya2 >> Honeybread: Really??
[Whisper] Gonyanyanya2 >> Honeybread: hehe
She was incredible—almost too good to be a newbie.

...Something felt off.
[Whisper] Honeybread >> Gonyanyanya2: Hey
[Whisper] Honeybread >> Gonyanyanya2: Priest your first class?
In Dusk, you can level any class, so I wondered if she’d maybe run Abassin on another character before.

[Whisper] Gonyanyanya2 >> Honeybread: Yup!
Apparently not.
Is she really a newbie? But if so, something didn’t add up.

I’d been laser-focused on Gonyanyanya’s performance since Boss #1. Even though I don’t know Priests that well, I’ve picked up bits from watching Retaking a Class’s videos. And just from the way she handled the mechanics, it was obvious—she had control. I was watching closely to figure out if she was legit.
And Gonyanyanya didn’t just know Abassin. She mastered it. We haven’t reached the final boss yet, but she had Boss 1 and 2 memorized cold. She handled every mechanic, even the ones that trip up first-timers, flawlessly. Not a single clumsy move.
Alright, fine. That could happen. Maybe she just studied hard. These days, there’s a ton of guides and videos, and it’s not that hard to memorize a dungeon and pick up useful tips. Maybe she really did her homework.

But to perfectly heal a tank through spike damage, to juggle the constantly fluctuating party HP under poison debuffs without letting a single person die?
Is that even possible?
I’d bet my life that even Retaking a Class didn’t pull that off as a newbie. Loads of people hit max level and still don’t fully understand their class. Especially Priests, since the Stress debuff is notoriously hard to manage. Most players panic the moment something goes off-script.
Even if she watched Retaking’s guides, those were made for dual-heal setups. Sure, there are solo-heal videos, but those are more like “hey, this is possible” rather than practical tutorials.

Just following a skill rotation doesn’t let you solve every situation. And now we’re saying a level 43 first-timer solo-healed Abassin like this?
…So she’s not a newbie?
Then who the hell is she? Someone who made an alt, mooched off me claiming to be broke, threw herself into danger to get my attention, and now ran a dungeon with god-tier control?

A freakin’ attention-seeking lunatic.
And with skills like Retaking’s… Retaking…
Retaking.

[No such thing as “newbie priests”… don’t be fooled by appearances.]
[Still playing Dusk.]
[Dungeon? lol]
You little shit.