Dusk (BL Light Novel)

The boss’s HP should’ve already dropped to 1%—it would’ve under normal conditions—but the number just wouldn’t tick down. My anxiety kept rising, and the sound of my keystrokes grew louder through my headset, as if echoing my urgency.

I slammed each key like extra pressure would increase my damage output. Maybe the game sensed my desperation—because finally, my character succeeded in pushing the boss’s health down to exactly 1%.
The casting bar, just like the HP, was almost full. If we didn’t clear it now, I was going to collapse. I bit my lip hard, pressuring myself.
Once the HP dropped below 1%, the numbers started showing decimal points: 0.9%, 0.8%, ticking down in precise increments. The countdown was steady, and the cast progressed just as steadily toward its climax.

0.6.
0.5.
0.4.

0.3.
0.2.
0.1.

I recited each number to myself like a countdown. And the instant that 0.1 finally hit the zero we’d been praying for—the boss stopped casting. Right before it could finish. Literally a pixel away from executing the wipe mechanic, it froze in place, its fluttering fingers halting mid-air, and let its arms fall limp. Even the background music, which had been gnawing at my nerves, stopped. Everything went silent.
The wings that had copied mine began to crumble from the bottom up. Retaking’s remained intact—only mine disintegrated into dust. And then, for the first time ever, the nameless boss, whose face had always been blank and indifferent, smirked like it was mocking me.
A sharp, ear-splitting noise pierced my ears like tinnitus—and then the entire screen went white.

I squinted against the sudden light attack, and when the screen darkened again, I quickly checked my monitor. The transition was so abrupt I couldn’t tell whether we’d cleared it or failed.
And what greeted me was—
[Error: Unable to connect to server. (??null?)]

A system window, glowing in the middle of a black screen.
[Error: Unable to connect to server. (??null?)]
Error.

Unable to connect to server.
…Server access failure.
I slowly moved my mouse toward the “OK” button. Actually, I moved to click it and then, on impulse, slammed the mouse with my fist.
Seriously? A disconnect right at 0% of a wipe mechanic? Are you fucking kidding me? Have they lost their minds? So—did we clear it or not? If we did clear it and then I got disconnected, what happens now? Don’t tell me Retaking also got kicked. If we both got booted, the boss aggro would reset, right? Shit, if that’s the case, I swear I’ll camp in front of the dev office and whine like a banshee all day.

I pressed my forehead against my fist and tried to catch my breath, the adrenaline leaving me ragged. Okay. It already happened. We saw the wipe mechanic. Even if it resets, we can clear it next attempt. We’ve mastered the early mechanics, figured out how to handle the pickpocket gimmick, we know the final phase reverses tile colors. All that’s left is to finish it off. Shouldn’t I be feeling good?
I wasn’t. Not at all. We could’ve cleared it. Fuck.
I stayed still and waited for the anger to settle. As my temper ebbed, my rational brain slowly started poking through again.

And that rational voice asked: Wait. Have I ever been disconnected mid-dungeon like this before? Even once?
The thought made me lift my head immediately. Come to think of it, the final boss had shown off a series of mechanics that bent and broke game systems themselves. Now, right after it hit 0%, the boss smiled—mockingly—then the screen glitched and flashed white, followed by an “Unable to connect to server” message.
If that was actually part of the wipe mechanic… if this wasn’t a true disconnect but the result of a scripted failure… then the situation changed. That would mean I hadn’t been screwed by bad luck—but that we had failed the boss mechanic itself, either due to low DPS or unmet conditions.

As I calmly reevaluated everything, the anger drained away. In its place came a strange sense of anticipation, a little chill, and some quiet resentment toward the developers. I grabbed my mouse and quickly hit the button to relaunch the game.
I needed to confirm if I was right. But when I pressed the left mouse button with my index finger—nothing happened. No click, no tactile response.
I picked up the mouse. Sure enough, the left button was cracked and hanging off like a broken fingernail from when I’d ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) slammed it earlier. Weak little bastard.

Frantic now, I tore open drawers on my desk until I found a spare mouse and swapped it in. I shoved the broken one aside and immediately switched to my secondary monitor, reopening Retaking’s stream window to see what was going on while the game booted up again.
If this wasn’t a real server error, Retaking should still be online.
And sure enough, he was. He was still in the game.

That strengthened my theory that the disconnect was a scripted part of the final mechanic. Though… it still didn’t explain why I was the only one kicked.
More importantly—Retaking was alive. For a split second, I thought, Did he clear it?
But I couldn’t be sure. Even though Retaking’s character was still alive, something about the scene felt… off.

The boss lay collapsed on the ground. Battle looked over. But Retaking’s character was stuck in a kneeling position, hand on the floor, immobilized by a status effect.
In the spot where status icons should be, there was a black icon I’d never seen before. It didn’t even show a timer. Retaking had his cursor hovering over it. The tooltip simply read: “412”—no explanation.
The boss was definitely down, yet Retaking was trapped in some unknown debuff. Suspicious.

But the most bizarre part wasn’t that.
It was that my character was moving.
Didn’t I just get kicked?

I looked down at my hands, confused, then up at my monitor. My hands were still—gently curled fists, waiting for login. The monitor showed the game had just reached the character select screen.
And yet, on the stream, in the party list, “Honeybread” was grayed out—marked as disconnected. No active player. Which meant, by all logic, my character should’ve been completely idle.
But there he was. Shakily, hesitantly, like a toddler taking his first steps—my character creaked forward.

Honeybread, unpiloted, staggered toward Abrea.
Abrea, clearly unnerved by my uncanny, lurching movements, stepped backward with a pale face. But just two steps in, Adam extended a hand and blocked Abrea’s back, halting any further retreat.
Honeybread caught up to them.

[- Abrea: ]
—‘Wha… the hell! Wha… don’t… hey, s-stop it…! Hey!’
The script box showed only Abrea’s name. The actual dialogue field was completely blank.

And judging by the distance between Abrea and Retaking, we couldn’t hear what was being shouted.
Retaking frantically opened system settings and adjusted the audio—maxed out voice volume and hit apply. But by then, Abrea had already fallen silent. She wasn’t saying nothing—just whispering, too quietly to be understood.
The script field remained empty. Her voice, barely audible, scratched at the edges of perception. It was obviously a story cutscene meant to tease the player’s curiosity, but the way it kept dangling just out of comprehension… it scraped against every Korean player’s already frayed nerves. Normally, gamers are superheroes who can catch NPCs whispering from the other side of a zone.

I figured there was nothing more to be gained from staring at a silent, near-mute video, so I turned my attention back to the main game monitor and clicked on Honeybread’s character to reconnect.
I half-worried the error message might pop up again—but thankfully, it didn’t. A perfectly normal loading screen with artwork appeared, just like always.