Taking a punch from "reality".

One after the other I carefully dodged each fireball and my blood loss started becoming apparent - I was feeling dizzy.

Little sparks, white in color, sometimes appeared in my eyes but that was just a sign of exhaustion.

Taking heavy breaths, I clung onto the handles of the blades. After all, I've decided to survive.

Right, left, left, forward, down, down, right, up.

Every time I saw one of those deadly balls approach me I shifted my weigh and made the daggers move.

I have no idea how long he will last.. maybe his manapool is still nearly full and I'm just struggling for nothing. Haah.

My hands are becoming slippery and I am about to pass out from a blood loss. What a terrible feeling.

And then I felt it. The silence. I was so entranced in this fight that I didn't pay attention to something as simple as that. This room is completely silent. The only sounds are my heavy stuttering breaths and the consistent sound of dripping liquid.

That must be my blood. But why are the fireballs not making any sounds?

Did I perhaps stop hearing things properly? That could be it. Ah, I absolutely hate this feeling. I want to let go of the damn handle and fall to the ground.

I blanked out for a moment, and a fireball hit me in the rib cage.

"Hhee.." I hissed, winded.

This made me come back to my feeling and I somehow caught the handle once again, with one hand this time. Why isn't the other manipulator responding? What's going on?

Now that I think of it, it takes a bit of mental energy to control them, and I really don't have much of that.

I tried regaining my balance, but coughed up some blood instead.

"Eugh.. ha. Haha. My vital.. organs." I laughed.

It's also something I've always wanted to say. I guess this dog helped me accomplish two of my dreams in a single day - so I'll have to kill it with special care as a thanks. But, really, what's going on? The rate of fire has dropped dramatically, and it's not just me halluciating. I can tell because I would've gotten hit by at least one or two more fireballs, but I'm somehow avoiding it all in this state.

It's running out of mana? Hoh, so I still have a chance.

I kept avoiding the not-so dense wall of fireballs, still just barely holding on to my manipulator. The other three have been retracted, in order to ease the mental task for myself. With my brain as messed up as it is right now, there's no way I could still control those things and dodge the attacks, even with [analytic thinking] giving me a helping hand.

The attacks have.. comletely stopped? Good, so this is that "last chance" which all protagonisnt get when they fight. Take it or die, that's the intent right? That said, I like to think of myself as the protagonist of some isekai manga, and a good portion of my motivation to fight in the first place was living up to my title.

The self proclaimed protagonist.

With my movements so resrticted, the only good idea I could think of was a dive attack, and of course I have to shout while doing so. Something like "DIIIEE!!" would be pretty epic, but I physically can't do that in my state, so a quiet "goodbye" will do.

"Goodby.. haha.. *cough*!" I strarted going for a dive attack, which looked more like I was just falling helplessly, and, let's face it - that's exactly what I did. I let go of my manipulator, hoping to land on the cerberus' body to soften the fall, and halfway thorugh that I realized how dumb I must have looked while doing so.

The laugh was inevitable.

Welp, rest in peace doggy. Yes, you are pretty huge and have three heads, but you are a dog nonetheless.

I landed on the cerberus' body just as planned, but something was wrong. He.. was supposed to collapse on the ground due to his lack of mana, but he was perfectly fine. So, what was the reason for him to stop attacking me then?

My tired and confused brain started turning the cogs again after the sudden pain in my heart. It felt like something was squeezing my heart hard enough for it to burst, but at the same time no physical damage was done.

The heartrate skyrocketed with realization of the grave mistake I made, and along with that, a feeling to which I have never been exposed before has arised.

Fear.

No, fear isn't the right word. It was pure horror.

There was no mysterious force tugging at my heart, but intead it was my heart convulsing from the ovefrow of this emotion.

This cerberus was never even close to running out of mana, but it was, in fact, quite the opposite. He was charging up his channel ability, and that expains him slowing down his movements. He realized that in my current state I wouldn't be able to stop him from channeling the ability, so he completely stopped to speed up the channel.

The fear came from the immense aura which followed the spell being cast.

"This is not how you trat you protagonisnt now, is it? Fucking unfair! Wh.. Why does this shit keep happening to me?" I was vomiting blood and tears started pouring out of my eyes. My body was uncontrollably shaking, and I fell off of the cerberus and onto the floor.

It was then I realized I was no protagnist I though of myslef the first time I was summoned here. Of course this keeps happening to me, I, after all, am the reason for it. It was purely my decision to go to the dump despite knowing how dangerous the place is, and it was completely my fault for ignoring the common sense, hoping that the luck of being a "main character" will save the day in the case something goes wrong.

Time and time again, this day proved me wrong.

~~~

Silence has filled the room once again. Silence. My ears started ringing and I got a massive headache.. pretty funny that the most painful thing right now is my headache, considering that I am missing an entire limb.

"Alright fucker. You won." I used up my remaing energy to say that phrase, and looked the beast dead in the eyes while doing so.

A blank expression could be seen on my face.

Well, I guess watching this cerberus cast some insanely strong spell isn's such a bad way to die, is it? At least I get to enjoy the show.