“Are you ready, Maya?” I ask.

   “Ready as I’ll ever be.” the vampire replied. “What about you, senpai?”

   “Nope. Not one bit. I feel like I’m going to puke at any moment.” I confess.

   “...You do realize that we’re going in there in just a moment, right?”

   “I can’t help it, okay?”

   Maya opened her mouth and looked like she was about to say something, but stopped at the last moment and glares at me instead.

   “What?” I couldn’t help but ask.

   “You’re not trying to pull the same trick like the one you pulled on our first mission together, are you?” she demands.

   “You mean the time when I pretended that I was about to puke? Of course not. Even I know how to read the atmosphere.”

   Upon hearing that, Maya stops glaring at me. She reaches out her hand and pats me on my back reassuringly.

   “Don’t you worry, senpai. I’m here, too.” she tells me.

   “Yeah. Thanks, Maya.”

   “If you want to thank me, bring me to somewhere fun after we’re done with this.”

   I roll my eyes.

   “I should have known that your kindness comes with a price…” I mumble.

   Maya giggles. “I’m no Daemon, but I sure ain’t going to be kind for free. After all, I have a reputation to keep.”

   “Fair enough. I’ll make sure to do some research.”

   “Yay~!”

   “What on earth are we being forced to watch?” I hear Darum-san whispering at the back.

   “Oh brother, this is so bright I think my eyes are going blind...” Lucas-san groans.

   “Just shut up and watch, you two!” Polusa-san hisses.

   …Drat, I’ve completely forgotten that Maya and I weren’t alone. And Khriswell is watching too. I hope she thinks nothing about this. Oh well, one thing at a time I guess. I reach out my right hand to push open the double door in front of me. The doors move backwards without any resistance.

   The first thing I see is a huge treant that’s standing in the middle of the room. As Catherina has informed, this treant has no leaves on its branches. Instead of eyes, it has two blank holes. Instead of a mouth, it has an oval hole that extends and retracts as it breathes. And most importantly, there are one ring each on its index, middle and ring finger respectively, with the middle one glowing in an eerie red light. The ring on the index finger is connected to the ring on the middle finger with a single metallic chain, and the same is done to the rings of the middle and ring finger. From the flatness of its chest, I assume that the human is male. And there he is, the human who defeated Aeshma.

   “Good luck, you two.” Kaede says.

   “Kick that tree’s behind!”

   “What she said!”

   I also hear other people from our party saying all kinds of encouraging lines. I show them all a thumbs-up without turning around. As for Maya, she’s waving her right hand.

   The moment Maya and I stepped through the doors, they closed back immediately. Now we’re stuck in here until us or the Demon Lord wannabe is dead.

   The treant didn’t waste time with words. He lets out a deafening roar and charges towards us at full speed. I pulled out a staff from my inventory. I bought this from the blacksmith a few days ago, the same day I found out that Treant Boy is the Floor Boss of the ninetieth floor. It's made of some kind of wood, and there’s a black hexagonal gem at the tip. Now, I didn’t just get a random staff that I could get my hands on. It had to be this one since it allows me to cast non-Elemental Spells by only spending half of the usual MP.

   I take a single breath and chant Void Prison, a high Level imprisonment Spell. That said, I don’t plan to capture Treant Boy here. Rather, I released something that I caught the day before: a harpie.

   The appearance of the bird woman surprised Treant Boy so much he actually stopped in his tracks. The harpie spent the first few seconds looking around frantically, no doubt trying to figure out her whereabouts. When she locked eyes with Treant Boy, her bewildered look immediately turned to one of anger and hatred.

   With a loud bird-like screech, she leaped into the sky and flew towards him. As Maya and I watched, the harpy scratched his trunk body continuously with her leg claws. Treant Boy lets out an annoyed grunt and tries to swat her away with his thick arms, but she manages to fly away and dive-bomb him once again.

   Oh good, my Plan B worked. I chant Void Prison again and let out nine other harpies that I captured alongside the first harpy that I released. Just like their peers, the nine harpies kept themselves busy by attacking Treant Boy. Meanwhile, they’re completely ignoring Maya and I.

   For those of you who’re wondering what on earth is going on, allow me to explain from the very beginning.

   In the game, Aeshma, the Demon Lord that Treant Boy defeated, was in charge of ruling the Seventh Circle of Hell. According to Dante’s Inferno, this particular Circle is separated into three rings and houses sinners who have committed violent crimes when they were still alive.

   The first ring is full of sinners who acted violently against neighbors. Murderers, plunderers and the likes are forced to swim inside Phlegethon. Anyone who tried to swim out of the river of boiling blood and fire will be shot by Chiron and his centaurs using arrows. The second ring, on the other hand, are being occupied by those who attempted or died by suicide. Here, the sinners are transformed into trees and get constantly attacked by harpies. Lastly, the third ring is an eternal prison towards those who defied God, defiled Nature and/or misusing the original purpose of Art. Blasphemers and Usurpers are left on a burning desert as balls of fire fall slowly from the sky and scorch them.

   Aeshma's abilities in the game were based on the punishment given out in each ring, and he has two phases in total. For the first half, he’ll either transform himself into a huge centaur or a giant treant. When he only has half of his HP left, he’ll shrink and turn into a humanoid demon. His abilities in these forms aren’t that relevant right now, so I’ll just skip them.

   When I first heard from Catherina that Treant Boy is the Floor Boss of the ninetieth floor, I immediately thought of the harpies that I can find in the same dungeon. That’s why I wasted no time to magically capture and imprison ten of them so that I could try and release them on Treant Boy. And lo and behold, the harpies are really keen on attacking him just like in Dante’s Inferno.

   Back to reality. The harpies are being really relentless towards Treant Boy. In this form, Treant Boy’s attack and defense stats have gone off the roof, but his speed is a sad sight. As such, he’s having a hard time getting rid of the harpies. It’ll probably take him hours just to kill one-

   SLAM!

   “SCREEEEEEEEEEECH~!”

   Oh, never mind. One just went down. While they were busy, I pulled out a piece of diamond the size of a lime from my inventory. This diamond is called a Gem of True Sight. It’s a single-use item which allows its users to see through any illusion, even if said illusion is cast by someone way stronger. I bring the diamond right in front of my left eye and cast Appraisal.

   “Can you really see its status with that, senpai?” Maya asks me.

   “Yup, clear as day.” I confirm. “Let’s see, name: Tenha Kai. Level, 150-”

   “We’re supposed to fight someone with a Level as high as him? Just the two of us? Seriously, senpai?”

   “Of course I’ve taken into account the fact that his Level is much higher than ours, now shush. Let’s see, where was I? Oh, right. His MP. Hmm…”

   Since Tenha is Level 150, he has a lot, and I mean a lot, of MP. Even if both Maya and I combine the amount of MP that we have, it’s still not enough to compete with him. As I watch, his MPs are getting drained bit by bit for using the Ring of the Demon Lord. With the speed it’s disappearing, I estimate that Tenha can remain in his form for at least one more hour.

   Next, I look at his Corruption Meter. As I have mentioned before, this meter will appear as soon as you transform using one of the Rings of the Demon Lord, and will be filled up gradually until you undo the transformation. Right now, it’s completely full. In the game, this would mean an automatic Game Over as Roy, the character you’re using, has lost his humanity. I guess the same thing has happened to Tenha.

   As soon as I’m done checking out Tenha’s status, the diamond I was holding shatters into tiny little pieces. I’m glad that it did its job well since buying even one cost me quite a lot of money. Now, I’m content with observing Tenha and collecting as much data from him as possible until Maya and I have to actually fight him.

   Three minutes have passed by in the blink of an eye. Two more harpies got killed, leaving only seven more. As I watch Tenha try again and again to punch the harpies into oblivion, I begin to wonder whether he remembers that he’s wearing not one but three rings. The thing is, Aeshma’s centaur form comes with a bow and arrows, and his final form allows him to deflect all attacks back to his attackers. If Tenha switched into one of these two forms, he could take care of the harpies easily.

   I decided to check his attention span. I lift my staff and mutter some words. One second later, a small fireball flies out of the tip of the staff and hits Tenha’s face. The fireball was small and definitely did next to no damage to him, but it sure got his attention. He lets out a deafening roar and tries to get me, but he couldn’t since he’s still being surrounded by the harpies. In less than one minute, he’s back to being busy with the harpies.

   “Hey, tree face! Weren’t you supposed to beat me up or something? So stop getting distracted by them and come get me!” I called out.

   Tenha is being too distracted by the harpies to give a proper response. For all I know, he couldn’t even hear me. At this point, I’ve begun to think that Tenha is so far gone from transforming that he lost the ability to think logically.

   Good.

   “SCREEEEEECH~!”

   “SQUAWK!”

   Two more harpies are down for the count. I guess it’s time to commence Plan A. I look at Maya.

   “We’re going too.” I told her.

   The vampire cracks her fists gleefully. “About time! I was so bored I was about to fall asleep!”

   She pulls out a red paper out of nowhere. In the next moment, the paper glows, then promptly disappears. As I watch, a pair of wings made of blood appear on Maya’s back. Crimson Slashers, Maya’s preferred and only weapons of choice. Me, I’m sticking to my staff. If things go well, there won’t be a need for me to go into close-combat.

   Maya spreads Crimson Slashers as wide as she could. With a single wing beat, she flies towards Tenha like a missile.

   “DROP DEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD~!!!”

   Using her momentum, Maya lands a kick at Tenha’s head. Any other opponent would have their head cracked open, but not Tenha. He’s not even fazed.

   “Oh, come on! You could at least look like you felt something!” Maya complains as she flies backwards to dodge an incoming swat from Tenha.

   “Just so you know, his defense is at least five times higher than your attack.” I informed her.

   “Seriously? That’s just cheating!”

   “It’s not like I was expecting you to wound him anyway. Just be careful and do the job you were given.”

   “Got it~!”

   Maya’s job is plain and simple: to distract Tenha every time his attention is focused on me along with the harpies. What exactly am I doing, you ask? I lift my staff and cast a Spell called Mana Burst. Right after it was cast, Tenha flinched visibly.

   Here’s the thing: Mana Burst deals magical damage based on the target’s mana pool. The higher the maximum MP the target has, the more painful the damage is. Since Tenha’s MP gauge is on a whooping six digits, he’s definitely feeling the pain.

   I cast a second Mana Burst. Another flinch from Tenha. His glare falls towards me. He probably realized that I was the culprit behind the two attacks that affected him.

   “Oh no you don’t!” Maya yells.

   Before Tenha could even move an inch, Maya gives him another kick in the face. The kick annoyed Tenha so much I was immediately forgotten.

   “ROOOOOOOOOOOAR~!”

   “Missed me! Nope, missed again! Come on, you gotta try harder! Nah nah, you’re so slow an actual tree is faster than you!” Maya taunts Tenha.

   I’m not sure Tenha even understands human language anymore. Nonetheless, he’s still being distracted by her. While they're busy, I cast another Mana Burst on Tenha. This time, he’s being so preoccupied by Maya and the harpies he didn’t even come after me.

   I have to say, things are going well so far. When I was still playing the game, I had trouble defeating Aeshma since all of his forms are broken in their own ways. One of the playthrough I found on Y*utube involves fighting him alone since more people means more attack that his final form can deflect.

   When he’s in his treant form, you’re supposed to do what I’m doing now and keep on casting Mana Burst at him. When he transforms into a centaur, you have to dodge both his arrows and his charges. You can forget about casting Spells when he’s in this form since he can fire his arrows as he charges towards you like a bullet train. I tried doing the same, and it worked. After the 18th attempt.

   The part I couldn’t pass through no matter what is when he’s in his final form. According to the playthrough, you have to attack him using a weapon with a really low attack point. This is to goad him into using his deflection ability. The real time to attack is when the ability is on a cooldown which lasts ten seconds. Sure, it sounds simple enough until you realize that he’s also pummeling you with his regular physical and magical attacks.

   What I’m trying to say is, fighting Tenha is a lot easier than Aeshma. With his current state, I could probably take him on alone, but it sure is nice to have Maya distracting him for me so that I could focus on my Spell. Oh, right. The harpies are here too. Can’t forget about them. All five of them.

   CRACK!

   “SCREEEEEEEEEECH~!!!”

   Strike that. Make that four.

   I might be wrong, but Tenha seems a lot more frustrated whenever he’s being attacked by one of the harpies than by Maya, even though the vampire’s Level is a lot higher than the birdwomen's. Out of curiosity, I took out a second Gem of True Sight and cast Appraisal on Tenha again so that I could check out his remaining HP. Coincidentally, one of the harpies was clawing his arm. What I saw made my jaw drop.

   “Maya, protect those harpies at all costs!”

   “Huh? What’s this all of a sudden, senpai?”

   “Those harpies are dealing some insane damage at Tenha! If we rely on them to take care of him, we could end this in no time!”

   “Well, in that case-”

   Maya swooped in and rescued a harpy that was about to be punched to smithereens by Tenha’s right fist. The rescued harpy looked dazed for a few seconds, then went back to attack Tenha like nothing had happened.

   “Exactly how much are we talking about here?” Maya asks.

   “I’m not sure. Try attacking him once.”

   Maya obliged and kicked Tenha’s left temple as hard as she could.

   “Around five times more than yours.” I informed her.

   “Seriously? You should have caught more of them, senpai!”

   “How was I supposed to know? It’s no use brooding about it now. Just focus and protect the remaining ones.”

   “Roger that!”

   On a side note, Tenha’s HP is down by a quarter. Between the harpies’ attacks and my Mana burst, we’re dealing rather significant damages here.

   Suddenly, I notice that Tenha’s tree-trunk body is shedding some of its bark. Some parts have shed so much you can see the interior. I was expecting to see wood. Instead, I see pulsing human flesh. It’s rather disturbing.

   “Um, senpai? Is that normal?” Maya asks with slight fear in her tone.

   “I swear nothing of that sort happened when I fought the real deal in the game.”

   “So it’s all Tenha?”

   “I’m afraid so.”

   “Oh, boy. This is going in a bad direction, isn’t it?”

   “Probably.”