Despite the massive step up in level, I couldn't see this boss as being tougher than the previous one. It was strong, for sure. Stronger than me even with my [Strength], but with [Dexterity] I knew I was faster than it. It had the same tree branch weapon as the last one, so I knew what attacks to expect. On the other hand, my stats and skills had increased, and I had better equipment. The true strength of the previous boss had been in teamwork. Also intelligence, if I was honest; seeing a single use of my [Far Step] was sufficient for them to infer and negate my strategy when I had tripped the whip user. This boss only had brute force. That counted for nothing if he couldn't hit me.

Of course, if he did hit me, I was in trouble. One clean hit to my head and it would probably burst like a balloon. Not a pleasant thought... Xander and co probably wouldn't let that happen, but I didn't want to stake my life on a 'probably'.

While I was sizing up my foe, Jared completed his healing. With my head cleared, I could see Xander's point; I was not functioning properly earlier and there was no way I could have taken care of myself. I should also add healing magic to my list of things that worked in mysterious ways. Despite being 'fully healed', I was still down a few points of health, which Jarad informed me was because his [Heal] spell wouldn't perfectly replace my lost blood. But what about the portion it did replenish? Did it conjure it out of thin air directly into my body, or did it poke my body into producing its own at biologically ridiculous speeds? Would I need to eat a massive meal now to make up thousands of consumed calories? I certainly didn't feel hungry, but given that I'd thrown up a few minutes ago, that may not be a reliable piece of evidence. Xander wasn't telling me to eat, though, which was more reliable.

All ready for the fight, I stepped up to the arena and activated my buffs, waiting just inside the line as the orc charged. My previous strategy against an orc had worked fine, aside from the whole almost dying thing, so I decided to repeat it. Using my space magic to plant myself behind the orc, I took a swing at his leg. The monster dodged backwards and swung his branch around with a dexterity unlike anything I saw from the last orc. Damn it, was this one stronger?

Maybe it was a little, but even if so, that wasn't the main difference. It was the way it was using its branch, swinging in wide arcs. The last one I'd led into a particularly dense patch of forest. Its agility was heavily compromised by the surroundings, where its swings impacted the vegetation, slowing it down. I cursed at my stupidity; I'd assumed a large advantage in speed that simply wasn't there, merely an illusion created by a field advantage against the last orc.

I may not have had the large advantage that I'd assumed, but I did still have some advantage. With my buffs, I was clearly the faster of the combatants. While I couldn't land a decisive blow, I was landing many smaller ones while dodging the swings of his branch. There was no way I was going to wear him down before my buffs wore off, though; we'd been going for more than a minute already. Xander's lesson was fresh in my mind; if I was going to take risks, make sure they were carefully calculated ones.

I back-stepped, then jumped into the air, aiming for the orc's head. I could have sworn the thing smirked as he swung his branch straight for me, but I activated [Minor Speed] and [Minor Slow], and my speed relative to the branch changed. Calculating how to catch, or swat, something in mid-air was quite complicated mathematically, but a human brain could solve it almost instantly. Presumably his orc brain was the same. Such calculations don't normally account for the speed of the projectile changing in mid-flight, however. The branch swung past behind me, and I swung downwards with the full enchanted weight of my staff powered by my boosted twenty-seven points of strength.

There was a resounding crack as the orc lost his grip on his weapon and staggered backwards. I was expecting blood and brains to have splattered around the room, but remarkably, his head was still in one piece. A quick check showed I had a fraction over eighteen points of mana left, enough for another pair of rank two buffs and a [Far Step] or [Far Reach]. My [Endurance] had just expired, which gave me another minute of [Dexterity] and two of [Strength]. I still had enough time; that attack must have done some damage.

Saving my mana for now, I charged back in, swinging for the orc's legs while he was stunned. I was able to get a heavy hit in on a kneecap before he responded, reaching for my staff with his massive hands and trying to grab it off me. Still partially dazed by my strike to his head, his earlier dexterity now seemed like a joke, and I could easily evade his grasp. A second strike on his knee caused his leg to buckle, but as he fell to the ground, he did something I hadn't seen the previous orc do, and roared. Not just the loud shout of the previous orc, but the air shimmered as a shock-wave flew past. My vision blurred and both my ears stung. That must have been some sort of attack...

I should have reactivated [Endurance] immediately, and now I'd taken some sort of special attack that I might have been able to otherwise endure. I activated it now, and my vision cleared up, but I could hear nothing but ringing. The roar had likely torn my eardrums. [Dexterity] was about to expire, so I renewed that, too. That meant less than a minute to go before I needed to withdraw.

The orc returned to his feet while I was busy dealing with the effects of his roar, and swung at me with his fists, but he was clearly favouring one leg. I'd done some good damage there. I feinted towards his injury and he immediately moved to block. I spun around and aimed a real swing straight at his throat. He moved clumsily to block with his other hand, and I used the last of my mana to [Far Reach] through it. A full weighted strike caught him in the neck, and the orc fell to his knees, making choking noises. Dropping onto his bad knee caused that leg to give out completely, and he collapsed onto his stomach. I wasted no time in launching another overhead swing at his head, hitting the previous injury site a second time. His skull caved in, and while it still wasn't quite the explosion of brain matter I was aiming for, it was certainly a fatal blow.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

ding

Skill [Minor Slow] advanced to level 11

Really? After the harvest of the fourth floor boss, all I got was one skill level? And I'd even managed this one mostly uninjured, too. Oh well. Finishing that without significant injury was a reward in its own right. It went to show how much I'd grown in the season since my last fight with an orc. On the other hand, it had consumed almost the entirety of my mana. If floor ten of this dungeon had those things wandering around in groups, I would have no hope of survival down there, even ignoring the invisible poisoned traps.

The chest sprung into existence, and this time contained something other than money; along with a couple of large coppers was a metal ingot. My mana was still low enough that I didn't even want to use [Appraisal], but if I had to guess, I would have said steel. It was a pretty confident guess, my [Basic Smithing] skill whispering into my head about the colour, lustre and weight. A good quality ingot too. This dungeon supposedly produced steel and dire wolf leather as armour materials, but I wasn't expecting it to come as ready formed ingots in treasure chests. I placed it at the bottom of my pack, grumbling about the weight, which was enough that I was glad we would be leaving now; I wouldn't want to be carrying it while fighting in addition to my staff.

The others came over, and I could see Freya's mouth moving, but there were no words coming out. Okay, I hadn't been completely uninjured. I could still hear nothing but ringing. I pointed to my ears and tried to state my problem, but I couldn't hear my own voice properly either. Jared waved his hand and thankfully the world suddenly had sound in it again.

"Thanks, Jared. I'm certainly making you work today."

Jared nodded in acknowledgement, and Xander gave his observations. "It was a good fight. That stunt you pulled with your time magic was a risk, but it worked out. You seemed to underestimate its speed at the start, though."

Did he have some sort of telepathy skill? How did he even notice the speed thing?

"No, I don't have any sort of telepathy skill. I'm just observant. And you have a very expressive face."

I did my best to keep my face perfectly neutral, but I suspected I wasn't doing well. I may have had the intelligence of an adult, but I very much had the body of a child, and bodies had a habit of doing their own thing. Thank goodness; I'd be in all sorts of trouble if my body required me to manually operate a liver. Those things were complicated.

"Stop getting distracted. We're heading home."

We exited through the teleporter, but rather than heading back to the guild, we went to the equipment store. Adele was here yet again and came bustling over. Didn't she ever go home?

"Oh my, if it isn't Peter and Xander. You two are working together now? What can I get you today?"

"His armour needs a spot of repairing."

I blinked. I'd completely forgotten about that, after the whole mind-altering aftermath. How much was this going to cost, and how long would it take? I didn't have any more clothes on me, so I couldn't just strip and hand my armour over.

"Oh? Show me then, and I'll see what I can do."

I showed her the slice at my side, and she gasped.

"Whatever were you doing? That looks like you almost got gutted! Oi, Xander, you had better be doing your job properly or I'll see that no-one here ever serves you again."

Wow, she sounded angry. I'd better step in here. "He's taking his job very seriously, believe me. If he gets any more serious, I'll be in trouble for a completely different reason."

Adele peered at me suspiciously. "If you say so, but you'd better not be covering for him. Anyway, that'll be one large copper please."

Was that all? With only that, I was still in profit for the boss fight. I handed over the large copper, nervous that she was about to tell me to strip, but she just put her hand over the cut. When she removed her hand, the cut was gone, and the leather looked as good as new.

"Wow. If you can do that, why does armour need replacing so often?"

"I can only stitch it together, dear. My skills can't create more material from nothing."

Fair enough. While we were in the store, I stocked up on rations, then we headed to the guild sales area to deposit today's core collection. The steel ingot went for a large copper, and the cores for another seven. Adding in the chests, I'd earned more than a silver today! Hmm... While a silver was a massive income for our village, was it really a lot here? I'd considered delvers rich, but if that money was being split five ways it wouldn't be that much. I wondered what the income from hunting lower floors was like?

And that left us in the bar where today I was ordering food for once. I had a bowl of vegetable stew, one of the cheaper options, and one that was blissfully free of orc. I also had a cup of fruit juice. Everyone else had beers again, except for Freya, who always seemed to go for cider.

"Not a fan of beer?" I asked.

"No-one likes beer. Not really. They just pretend for peer pressure reasons. Umm... Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because that's suspiciously similar to what I thought when I saw Xander eating orc meat."

Freya laughed. "Hah, at last someone believes my theory."

"Don't you start that up again," said Noah. "It's not our fault your tongue doesn't work properly."

"Yeah, you can take my beer from my cold, dead body," added Robin. "And even then, my corpse will probably bite your ankles. Anyway, what's with you buying that stew? You do know we aren't expecting you to feed yourself, right?"

What, really? Yes, of course, what had I been thinking? Of course no-one would leave a seven-year-old to fend on their own... Of course it wasn't just my accommodation taken care of, but food too. Stupid me. I really needed to pick and choose when to act like an adult. Also, apparently the catkin pair really liked their beer. Duly noted... Which reminded me of something else I wanted to ask. "So have you lot been working somewhere else other than Dawnhold recently?"

"We were out running the dungeon on Serpent Isle," answered Noah. "It's an island not far off the coast north-east of here. There's no settlement out there, just a guild branch. This one is only ten floors deep, which is a bit low level for a party with multiple rank three members like ours. Serpent isle has twenty floors. We got called back to deal with you, but it's fine having a bit of variety in our schedule."

"It's fine having a few less bloody snakes in our schedule," added Freya, rather more colourfully. "Seriously, a twenty floor dungeon containing nothing but snakes! Some of the buggers are over thirty metres long!"

Okay, not going there for a while... Really not a fan of snakes. Almost as bad as bugs.

I played a game of Inequality against Xander and Noah, managing to win the first round with the aid of [Minor Intelligence] at critical turns, but the small amount of mana I'd regenerated ran dry before the second round and Xander ended up taking both of the final two, winning the overall game.

"What are the plans for tomorrow?"

"We'll meet up here at dawn as usual, then do a full clear of the dungeon. Obviously you won't be fighting yourself on the lower floors, but I want you to at least see the whole thing."

Cool, I'd get to see what I'm letting myself in for by trying to complete this quest.