I've never been so happy

The dragon’s mouth opened and a wall of heat rushed at me. The blast expanded fast and wide: pure fire, like that bonfire but focused, roaring straight for my chest.

I’d never been burned in real life, so I had no idea how my brain would model it. I didn’t want to find out.

For some reason my eyes went up, as if I could watch the mechanics of my death. I told myself I wasn’t afraid, I can come back.

Then the flame hit.

"GAHHHHH!!!!" I could only scream this in despair, while I instinctively put my hands in front of me.

My eyes, which had previously seen the approaching fire, cooked like poached eggs in a millisecond, and my vision became nothing, while I felt a thick mixture of it running lightly through the sockets, leaving a trail of semi-transparent, steaming slime.

Is this how you see in the Nothing? It's not black, strictly nothing, just like a blind person.

My skin was quickly frying. I could feel every muscle, every fiber contorting and dissolving, like meat placed in a frying pan at maximum temperature.

I soon stopped screaming, because the air in my lungs turned to steam, along with my internal organs that became something appetizing for a cannibal tribe.

The fat in my body turned to oil, bubbling and crackling over my flesh as it cooked. The joints in my body cracked and split like wood in a fire, with dry sounds, difficult to describe in words.

From the outside, I think I've just turned into a black skeleton.

I don't know what burned first, hands, legs, torso, etc. Maybe it was all at the same time.

But please, let it reach the heart or the brain soon.

This hurts a lot, maybe more than real life. My mother used to say that being burned alive was "the most painful thing." I always thought that being drowned was worse, more desperate. But now, the only thing I can feel is pity for all the living beings who died in similar ways. From the weakest to the strongest, from those with the fewest nerve receptors to those with the most, the pain shouldn't vary much.

Except for me. I'm the only who can come back, so I have nothing to complain or worry about.

Somewhere behind the roar I heard Mochiko: a frantic, mechanical “WOOwOO!” and then—

“You have experienced hell, conscience.”

A raw gasp tore me back into the white room.

I slapped at my skin, checking the whole body as if I could recover myself by touch. The white was a shock, my hands trembled. Brain hovered there, upside-down in midair, reading a book as though this were merely storytime.

“O-oh my God,” I whispered. “I’m...phew—”

“That death was terrible,” Brain said calmly.

“Brain, open the portal now!” I cut her off. “If one second here is one second there the dragon can turn back to Mochiko at any moment. If she sees me like that—”

“Hmm, but she is just—”

“JUST OPEN IT ALREADY!”

“Fine, fine.” The oval of white tore open again. Brain muttered the usual half-teasing, half-affectionate line: “Keep teaching us, conscience”— and I stepped through.

This time I woke on a shallow pool of water that had flooded the chamber. Cold hit me instantly. Water lapped at my shoulders and pressed at the ceiling, currents rolled. I choked and surfaced, lungs burning for air.

DAMN IT!! I DON'T WANT TO DROWN NOW!!!

Lucky I know how to swim... Then I'll just go up.

“Oh Theo! You need to thank me later!” Mochiko’s voice sounded weirdly bright from the cave mouth. She stood where the water thinned, grinning and puffing with showy pride. “I used a technique to save you from the fire, be grateful!”

“Th-thanks,” I croaked, swallowing water and disbelief. She hadn’t meant to let me die. She’d forced the whole pool to appear to keep the heat from finishing me off.

She tried to save me... Me.

"I am the final boss of this dungeon, Sirgi, the only way out of here is to kill me. Yet, sometimes I wonder if a dragon, dreaming that it is human should want to wake up, even if means to keep sleeping"

And the dragon wasn’t idle. A golden, transparent circle whirled above its head, a tiny golden core swelling in the centre as some spell wound up. I looked back and realized the beast was barely a few metres away; if it reached, it would be over.

“MOCHIKO! HURRY UP!” I shouted.

“Now! Bium, frequency two!” she shouted.

From the spinning circle a solid, blinding shaft of light snapped into being about my size and shot at the dragon’s head. I saw the skull split like brittle stone; the dragon’s roar turned into a tearing, empty noise as its head disintegrated. The body stumbled and fell, the red-hot breath, the burning, all of it collapsed like a stage prop.

It must have hurt a lot less than it did me...

Seeing the headless beast slump gave me a stupid, thin relief. Mochiko danced around, giddy and dramatic. “Of course he couldn’t survive an attack from the future world’s greatest wizard!”

“Make the water disappear, please!" I panted.

“Oh, right.” She waved, concentrating, and the flood drained away.

The dragon’s corpse began to fade into motes of ash and smoke, murmuring a final, cryptic line as it dissolved: "I am the final boss of this dungeon, Sirgi, the only way out of here is to kill me. Yet, there are those who confuse helping with simply extinguishing their own flame, one breath at a time."

...

Mochiko stood in front of me, flushed and proud, striking poses like she’d been born for the spotlight. “See? I destroyed him. He was no match. I saved you, too. But you don't need to say thank you, RECOGNITION IS WHAT I SEEK!!"

“Yeah… good job,” I said with my voice small.

I wonder, that attack was light magic I think, the one before was water type, the one with the bonfire was fire, and she also used electricity magic.

How many types of magic are in this world?!

"S-So hm, Mochiko... That was it? That's why we came here?"

"Oh..."

She quickly changed her appearance, clinging and shrinking around the staff, as well as looking away a little and blushing a little, like a shy koala.

And then she pointed to the left slowly "T-There... I-It’s yours..."

We both stared at the spot where the dragon collapsed. Something bright lay in the ash: a sword, simple and honest: round silver pommel, black handle, plain blade. Not a legendary relic, just a medium-good medieval sword.

"I-It’s a sword... W-When you defeat some dungeon bosses, sometimes they drop items, and I knew this one was going to drop a sword, s-so I went here to give it to you..."

She suddenly looked into me, playing defensively "B-BUT IT'S NOT JUST A RANDOM SWORD!! O-ONLY THE MOST- E-EH, O-ONLY THE MOST GOOD-HEARTED AND STRONG WARRIOR CAN HOLD IT!!"

This is... For me... For me?...

"W-Wait really? Do you-"

"No, it's just a common sword."

"Ah..."

I slowly moved to where the sword was. Lying there on the ground waiting for my hand.

I've always seen myself fighting with 2 daggers, like Thorfinn, it seems cooler than just a sword. But this is different.

"I-It’s a gift... I-I thought it was quite unfair since y-you literally gave me L-Lisa's staff, and I treated you kind of badly at home, and your're being my test dummy, s-so I thought I'd give you something of equal value... IT'S NOT OF EQUAL VALUE!! B-But, you don't have a weapon, and it's w-what I can give you... Now we're even..."

A gift, this is a gift... for me.

I don't think I've ever received one, except for my parents on my birthday...

D-Damn it, don't cry you idiot, d-don't cry again! There's no b-bathroom for you to go to here...

D-Dont cry... T-This illusions won't make you cry again...

H-How is it not of equal value? This is worth much more than any other thing.

"Mochiko... T-Thank you, I truly don't k-know what else to say... Thanks..."

I don't know if she noticed that I was almost crying, or if she was simply extremely embarrassed and wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, but she simply turned back.

"Y-Yeah... Let's go."

I smiled.

It was worth dying, it was worth going through all that, it was definitely worth it.

The pain I felt before doesn't even come close to what I feel now.

Happiness.