Dusk (BL Light Novel)

Once we properly entered the dungeon, I immediately understood why it was called the Mirror Maze. The layout twisted like a labyrinth, with branching paths and sharp turns at nearly every corner. If the angel hadn’t been lighting the way, I probably would’ve ragequit on the spot.

Most of the walls were made of mirrors, except for the floor, and the effect was enough to disorient the hell out of me. If I were actually standing in this place in real life, I probably would’ve suffered ego death.
Eventually, we made it to a small garden. Even though this maze was clearly located inside a building, the ceiling here had been blasted wide open, revealing a perfectly clear blue sky. It seemed like it was supposed to be midday—there was even a sun—but since Retaking (who’s Jeopa) didn’t get any daytime buffs, I figured it was probably an illusion or something fake.
The garden was swarming with trash mobs that looked like —the same black bird-shaped mobs we’d found during last week’s investigation quest. Once I got too close, the audio cue for aggro rang out several times, piercing my eardrums.

I charged into the swarm—at least ten of them—and activated my taunt skill. The mobs were neatly within range, and the moment I cast, they all turned and began attacking me.
Normally, a tank wouldn’t be able to sprint while in combat, and when the mob count got this high—even for trash mobs—the sheer volume of damage would force you to stop there, clean it up, then move on to the next pull or boss.
But we weren’t that weak.

[Party] Retaking: wait
Still unaggro’d and in a peaceful state, Retaking passed by where I was and ran off to attack another group of birds in the distance. He used ranged skills to tag them, then dodged around and lured them back toward me. Once they entered my range, I pulled aggro on those too. Soon I had around forty black birds pecking the hell out of me.
I cycled through what few AoE skills I had and started my damage rotation. My sword was slicing through mobs, but the actual numbers were pitiful. The tank damage in this game desperately needs a buff. Even when I play as an offensive Holy Guardian, my damage is already the lowest among DPS classes—switching to a defense stance nearly halves it again.

As I processed this depressing reality, I silently cheered Retaking on. His damage wasn’t that much better than mine, but he had multi-target DOTs and could apply his Mutated Virus Extract skill to multiple enemies. For mob packs, his output was still far better than mine.
Unfortunately, our dreams of a successful pull crumbled after exactly one minute and thirty seconds.
[System] The Blacklight Aberrations, exposed to disease for an extended time, have adapted to their environment and gained increased resistance!

[Party] Retaking: ?
We had no way of knowing the mob mechanics on a first run, so the sudden system message left us both stunned.
“Exposed to disease for an extended time”...? We’d pulled the whole room banking on Retaking’s disease DOTs and extraction skill! What the hell!

Retaking stopped healing and began frantically reapplying DOTs on all the mobs. He switched targets, spammed the same skill repeatedly, then suddenly froze.
[Party] Retaking: we’re fucked
[Party] Retaking: only like 1 in 5 DOTs is landing now

[Party] Honeybread: lmao
Thus ended our legendary first pull as an unkillable tank and an un-killing healer. Our final record: 8 minutes and 49 seconds. An absolute goddamn nightmare of a game.
(mentionplzwhenDuskHomepageMaintenanceEnds) 앋압악개 @dsk_dkekadkqmtkrnla · 15m
fuck
fuck
fuck
fuck
fuck
fuck
fuck
f
u
fuk
fuk
fuk
f
FUK
did u guys SEE that jsk stream??? omg??????ㅠㅠ?????

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군밤진심녀 @vEJoeVflqpwemv · 15m
i did lol
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(mentionplzwhenDuskHomepageMaintenanceEnds) 앋압악개 @dsk_dkekadkqmtkrnla · 14m
u guys saw jsk SWEAR just now right???? tell me i’m not the only one?????
🥖: i like it when u talk
🥖: fr!

he goes “ah shit, that was cute...”<<<<<<<<<<<<<<ㅜ
ㅜ
ㅜㅜ
ㅠㅠㅠ
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군밤진심녀 @vEJoeVflqpwemv · 13m
literally one of the reasons i locked my acc was so i could eat these two alive. retake x bread LOGICALLY UNDENIABLE endgame OTP

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(mentionplzwhenDuskHomepageMaintenanceEnds) 앋압악개 @dsk_dkekadkqmtkrnla · 13m
same here lol i’m retake x bread hardcore too. sasuga gunbam-kun… be my mutual forever ><~~
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군밤진심녀 @vEJoeVflqpwemv · 13m
you’re my forever retakebread mutual 💙
find unused program
bloc_moth reboot fail. (0xc??null?)

At last, the final mob went down. That was brutal.
Nine full minutes of repeating the same dull DPS rotation and survival cooldowns made me seriously question why I even chose to main tank in the first place. That ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ was the kind of boredom that hit so hard it felt physical. Like, yeah, the mobs were hitting my character, but they also chewed through my soul. No healer in this game could’ve patched that shit up.
[Party] Retaking: WE FUCKING DID IT ㅇ0ㅇ!

Actually, maybe one could.
‘[Combat] You have recovered mental stability thanks to Retaking’s Cuteness effect.’
He healed everything.

Retaking, proud of the fact that we had somehow managed to kill all forty-something mobs with a pure tank-heal combo, seemed genuinely chipper. Who knew how he looked IRL, but judging from the emoji in the chat, that was the vibe.
Still... Retaking feeling proud only meant that it was genuinely tough. Most trash pulls in this game take like 1 minute max. Even with a tank-healer setup, you’d expect maybe 2-3 minutes. Four at most. But this… this was another beast. Even named bosses don’t usually take that long.
[Party] Retaking: why are the mobs this tanky?

Apparently he was starting to get suspicious too.
[Party] Retaking: if this was random matchmaking, someone else might get paired with the same combo. Did the devs not account for that?
[Party] Honeybread: probs trying to force everyone to go full dps

[Party] Honeybread: or maybe expecting tank/dps, dps/heal comps
Saying it out loud made it feel even more annoying. What the hell was this? Strongarming everyone into rolling DPS? Isn’t that fundamentally messed up for a game that’s supposed to be about party roles?
While I was mentally chewing out ZeroSoft, Retaking was calmly doing a deeper analysis.

[Party] Retaking: if we were dps/dps, whoever held aggro would’ve definitely died. the trash mobs hit way too hard
[Party] Retaking: I had to blow every single heal CD just to keep up. Even with a full-geared Holy Guardian using perfect blocks and damage reduction, his HP was dropping by 10% per second while being mobbed by 44 birds. That meant I couldn’t really focus on DPSing either
[Party] Retaking: these mobs are almost raid-tier. If we hadn’t been tank/heal, we would’ve wiped. Even a tank/dps or dps/heal team wouldn’t have made it unless they pulled tiny packs

…Really? I dunno. I was too busy jabbing birds with a spoon to notice how much healing was coming in. If Retaking said it was bad, I’d believe him.
To show I was paying attention, I used the “nod” emote.
Honestly, as a tank, I had no clue if the healing was good or bad. If my HP bar was still up, I just assumed everything was fine.

[Party] Retaking: did we miss something? Even considering it’s a hidden dungeon, this is way too much for trash mobs.
[Party] Retaking: my viewers say in regular dungeons, even with tank/heal combos, it never takes this long. Three minutes tops?
Wait, what?

[Party] Honeybread: ?
[Party] Honeybread: ??
[Party] Retaking: since this is hidden, maybe there’s some gimmick we haven’t figured out yet

So it’s just us taking forever? Because it’s hidden? Because of a secret mechanic?
Are you fucking kidding me?