Chapter 54: Fighting A Losing Battle
After conducting the [Ritual] for No EXP, the color of his [Class] changed, becoming blue. When he tapped on it, it turned red and would no longer receive EXP. It was a bit unusual for it to not be a [Skill] or a [Title], but he lacked any explanation as to why it would be different this time.
Of course, he left it on red. The point of today’s excursion was to spend time in the dungeon to develop his [Skills], not grind levels.
He glanced at Verity, then at the group of people moving in and out of the [Goblin Manor] dungeon. After a second of thought, he pulled Verity aside where they could get some privacy, and asked, “So, did you make any progress this week?”
She gave him an exhausted look, but shrugged, “Kinda. I spent a long time earning and improving [Skills] this week. I volunteered at the Guild to heal people between sparring matches, and that helped a lot.”
“Which [Skills] did you learn?”
“I managed to convert my [Healing] to a [Skill], and the gods have given me a [Quest] for a few others, but I’m still working on the other problem you asked me about…”
Crimson nodded, “That’s decent progress for a week. What level is [Heal]?”
“4.”
“That’s decent, let’s see if we can get it up to 6 today.”
“You planning on getting hurt a lot?”
“I expect it to mostly be natural progress, but if needed, yeah. Much better to get hurt in a controlled circumstance than somewhere like a [Natural Dungeon].”
Verity inspected him intently for a moment, then shook her head, “I’ll work hard so it doesn’t come to that.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
She flashed him a quick grin, then said, “It seems like you have something else to say?”
“…am I seriously that easy to read?”
“I’ve seen books harder to read than you.” She said, her grin turning mischievous.
Crimson sighed, then said, “I wanted to run today’s schedule by you. While you seem fine to defer to my decisions in most cases, you are a member of the party, and you need a say. So, I wanted to ask if we should focus on grinding out [Skill Stones] for [Weak Presence] and [Darkvision], or if you think we should try hunting down the other boss.”
Verity steepled her fingers, then said, “Which are you inclined to?”
“I’m mostly fine either way, both will be forms of progress. I’d love to get used to fighting Mulgis, but there’s also something appealing about seeing how I can do against the other boss.”
“…I think it might be a good idea to take on the other boss, but we should be prepared to fail.” She eventually said. “It’s more a miracle than anything else that we managed to beat Mulgis under those circumstances, I fully expect the other boss to be nearly impossible for you right now.”
“So, to translate, you think I need to be humbled.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way, but you need to learn more caution.”
Crimson tapped the rapier on his waist. If Verity was going as far as to say it, she probably had asked around at the Guild about the main boss of [Goblin Manor]. If she knew what he did, then she also knew that this boss was essentially a hard-counter to Crimson. Of course, he wasn’t the type to back down to those kinds of threats, but she must genuinely believe they would die if they faced the boss.
It was a very unusual mentality for someone of this world, to be willing to take on a fight where loss was a given. The penalties for dying in a [Godmade Dungeon] were steep. All progress made during that dungeon visit would be lost, that meant that if a new [Skill] was learned or levels were gained, death would wipe those things out. That was just the first punishment. The second was the forfeiture of EXP for the next week. It was possible to get out of the time limit sooner, but a ‘donation’ of EXP would need to be made. The amount varied depending on how much progress was lost from the death, but the minimum was at least a level of experience.
Most people in Falst who ran into this issue would rather wait out the time limit than perform the ‘donation,' but Crimson wasn’t exactly known for his ability to hold still, he’d rather just make the ‘donation’ so he could get back to things as soon as possible. Not that it mattered anyway, it didn’t prevent [Skills] from improving. The message from the gods was clear, at least to him: “improve your [Skills] to avoid this in the future.”
The last punishment was the most extreme to him. If losing progress could only be expected, and the loss of EXP was an inconvenience at best, then what could the last one be?
Equipment degradation. Equipped weapons and armor would lose 25% of their remaining durability. This was effectively the same as them losing about 12% of their max durability in the worst case scenario, when someone with a low level [Repair Skill] looked after the weapon. Even in the best case scenario, it was likely for the max durability to decrease at least a little.
Apparently some ‘crazy guy’ who Crimson considered a kindred spirit had tested whether un-equipping the gear would prevent this, but the gods had instead punished him by removing 30% of the durability. The only method that had been found to work was if that gear was passed to another party member for them to run out of the dungeon.
Crimson could only salute the sacrifice of the man who tested all this by letting himself intentionally die in the dungeon. It was also highly likely there were other loopholes, but he hadn’t caught wind of any of them.
He stared at Verity for a moment after breaking out of his thoughts, then said, “Let’s take on the boss first, while avoiding as many fights as possible on the way there. I’d rather not lose anything good. One good attempt to fight it, then we’ll go into the chasms to farm for [Skill Stones].”
“Sounds like a good plan.”
They made their way back into the dungeon. Crimson, having learned at least a bit more caution, disabled the goblins who attacked them on their way to the Manor. He’d either use a kick to break their legs or use his rapier to sever important tendons. It might’ve been seen as cruel, but for other parties it was a blessing. All of the goblins Crimson crippled were finished off in less than a minute after they moved on. A certain party had begun trailing after the both of them for the free easy prey.
Most of the goblins in this area weren’t worth much, being Lv.1, so Crimson wasn’t worried about what profits he might be passing up. Rather, he didn’t want to run the risk of finding another [Skill Stone] as it would force him to leave because he wouldn’t want to give it up.
He could easily see himself getting caught in a loop of progress and setbacks.
They were ambushed the second they entered the mansion once more, but unlike the first time, Crimson was both ready and stronger. He used [Adaptive Footwork] to weave between the stones being flung at him, knocking some of the more problematic ones away with [Parry].
Two quick flashes from his rapier left the first two goblins crumbling to the ground clutching slit throats, [Rapid Bleeding] swiftly draining them of their remaining life.
He wove through another wave of stones, then broke out in a sprint up the stairs, but this goblin managed to dive out of the way of his blow, and only received a cut on the back from him.
He ducked down, dodging a pair of stones that smacked into each other, right where his head had been, then used the low stance to perform a powerful thrust, skewering the goblin hard enough to hear the thunk of his blade hitting the wood wall behind it.
With a twist and a wrench of his blade, he effectively bisected the goblin in his exertion to get his rapier free. It flexed quite far as it did so, but returned to straight and true after vibrating for a second.
He dove off to the side, trying to get away from another set of stones, but one of them crashed into his calf, deeply bruising it, but not breaking anything.
Tucking into a roll at the end of his dive, he let out a short hiss of pain before shaking it off and racing around the upper balcony to kill the last three goblins. After making short work of them, getting hit once in the arm in the process, he made his way down to Verity to be healed.
She was leaning up against the wall by the door, looking quite proud of him. It wasn’t a perfect encounter, but it was much better than last time. He hadn’t been forced to resort to magic, and Verity hadn’t needed to act as a decoy. It was impossible for him to suppress the exuberant grin on his face.
Verity’s [Healing] as a [Skill] immediately showed her marked improvement, taking her only a few seconds to recover the 15% of his HP that he’d lost. Her newfound swiftness confirmed to him that he’d rushed into the dungeon too early. While he’d been ready, Verity hadn’t had the [Skills] to back up her efforts yet.
After she finished, Crimson looked up at the ceiling, and said, “I can’t even bear to look at the drops. Should we leave them behind?”
She shook her head, “It wouldn’t be a good idea. Better to take them with us so we have the option later.”
“Even if we’ll lose them anyway?”
“Even if we’ll lose them anyway.”
It was extremely painful for Crimson as they collected the drops. The common drops, worth less than 3 Royals each, weren’t even worth the weight or space they took up to carry them, but Verity scooped them up anyway. The best margins came from the uncommon drops, of which they found three. As for the part he found painful, they found two [Skill Stones]. Both [Fling], sure, but even so, they were [Skill Stones].
Verity put those in her [Inventory] since he couldn’t bear to look at them.
They explored further into the manor after Verity cast [Enhanced Recovery] on them both. It was huge by human standards, but smaller than a video game dungeon. That was actually a problem as the difficulty ramped quickly. If the goblins they’d fought in the entrance hall had been Lv.3, then the ones in the next set of rooms were Lv.5. The enemies after those were Lv.9, and the ones after those were Lv.14.
Crimson still didn’t have a good instinct for estimating levels, so those were Verity’s estimations, but he was willing to agree. The Lv.5 goblins had gone from rudimentary weapons made from farm equipment used by the Lv.3 goblins, to real weapons, but of a low quality.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
The Lv.9 ones were not only armed, but armored, and gave Crimson some trouble as he had to be very precise with his thrusts. It would’ve been good practice if he weren’t so worried about his rapier’s durability.
It was fortunate that the size of the groups they fought decreased in proportion to the Level. The Lv.9 goblins would have groups of 3 at max.
It was especially a relief for the two Lv.14 goblins they fought who were alone.
Towering over Crimson, they used heavy weapons and even attack [Skills] to try and beat him down. He’d been on guard, so while he’d been hit a few times, they were all glancing blows, and he never went under 50% of his health. [Adaptive Footwork] was really carrying its weight.
For the drops they’d gotten, the common drops were worth more than the lower level ones, so they were worth taking, but against Crimson’s expectations, he didn’t receive one of each drop a single time. His [Fortune] aspect of the [Blessings of Trans’Du’Niir] hadn’t stopped working, and he still had his [Lucky Title] equipped. Clearly, there was some other condition he was missing about triggering the ability. That said, he still got some good drops. The best thing so far was an [Earth Stone Ritual] material.
As they explored, Verity recast [Enhanced Recovery] every time the previous duration ran out, so they were in tip top form when they reached a final hallway, another hulking Lv.14 goblin guarding the door at the end.
The other two Lv.14 goblins had each given him an item that said ‘1/3 of a key,’ so this was likely where he’d get the last one.
He took a ready stance with his rapier, and glared at the goblin. The goblins got bigger in proportion to their level. At Lv.14, they were as tall as Fade, who was a lot taller than Crimson. They had a reach advantage, they had a weight advantage, and the sheer volume of muscle and fat acted as a natural barrier that made each of his attacks barely inflict a scratch.
There was a trick to it, fortunately, and he’d struggled the most with the first of the three goblins, but the actual application of the trick was still difficult. For some odd reason, trying to shove the tip in straight did nothing, and slashing attacks similarly had no effect. It was pure dumb luck that he figured out the trick to make this thrusts work. He had to stab at an angle that would cause the flesh to bunch up under the tip of his blade, then, with a step towards the bunched flesh, he could then slide the rapier straight in, dealing a surprising amount of damage for the Level difference.
Why did this work? He could only assume that either [Defense Pierce] was a weirder [Skill] than he thought, the goblins had some kind of [Skill], or the innate nature of the flesh had some magical properties.
He’d have to study this later.
Sizing up the goblin in front of him, he focused on its weapons. It was wielding a hammer in one hand, and a short sword in the other. Considering how large the goblin was, it made the short sword look like a short dagger.
He’d need to be careful, especially to pull off the trick.
Moving lithely, he charged in, Verity keeping a close eye on him from behind, ready to cast a [Barrier] at any moment. She’d saved him more than a couple times already today, and he could only be grateful.
The goblin was aggressive and swung at him with the hammer, [Ru Mikiri] triggered and everything seemed to slow down. It wasn’t like time stopped, nor was it a powerful enough [Skill] to make everything seem like it was traveling in slow motion, but it was more than enough allow him to position the tip of his rapier, letting it dig into the goblin’s wrist, then with a small step he let the force of the goblin’s blow drive the rapier home, passing straight through the arm and even scraped against its stomach without piercing.
Instead of immediately retracting his blade Crimson stepped into it once more, dragging the cutting edge of his rapier through the goblin’s arm, down to its elbow. He didn’t have the force to cut all the way through bone, but the extra room his cut provided made it easier for him to extricate his blade and step back.
The step turned into a dodge as it swung the short sword at him, and once more, he managed to use [Ru Mikiri] to cut that arm in the same way.
The goblin couldn’t hold on to either of its weapons with how severe the damage was, and while Crimson hadn’t managed to inflict [Rapid Bleeding], he had inflicted [Bleeding], so it was losing HP with every passing moment.
That wasn’t fast enough, especially when dealing with a cornered animal. The goblin went berserk and charged at him, trying to bite him.
That kind of reckless action wasn’t anything new to Crimson, so he smoothly stepped in right when the goblin would be most off balance and tripped it, causing it to smack face-first into the ground.
He placed his blade on the back of the thing’s neck, got the flesh there to bunch up, then brought his rapier up to a vertical position and rammed it home. He had carefully aimed for a fleshy part of the back of the neck so he wouldn’t have to deal with the spine, and fortunately his aim was true - he’d learned he could do this with the second Lv.14 goblin - allowing him to then wrench his blade off to the side, and finally inflicting [Rapid Bleeding].
The goblin finally breathed its last, and disappeared, leaving its drops behind.
Crimson panted a little bit, and noticed that the duration on [Enhanced Recovery] had run out very early in the fight, probably right as it began. If it were under normal circumstances, he would worry about whether or not that meant that Verity would receive EXP for the fight, but where their goal was to work on [Skills], it didn’t matter.
Looking at the drops, Crimson cursed. One of each. Maybe he was more dense than he thought. He’d finally put together the final condition for [Fortune] to trigger.
He had to kill the enemy without any help.
Verity was grinding [Enhanced Recovery], so they’d both been under its effects for the entire day. There hadn't been a time where she hadn’t been helping him, either with that, or with a [Barrier] or [Healing].
It seemed that the other condition was that it was once per enemy type. He’d already put that together, but between those two conditions, everything fell into place.
Verity walked up after hearing him curse, and looked at the drops on the ground. She let out a defeated chuckle, and asked, “So, it looks like you figured something out. Mind sharing?”
“I expect this is a result of my [Fortune], the aspect of my [Blessing of Trans’Du’Niir] that boosts my LUC. The two conditions are that I have to kill the target without any help, and that it will only work once per enemy type.”
She whistled in response, then said, “I need to figure out how to get mine to work then. Well, what shall we do? Turn back? I imagine you don’t want to lose this [Skill Stone] - especially when its new.”
He muttered a low curse once more and scooped up the [Skill Stone]. [Robust]. Seemed like a defensive [Skill] of some kind. This would be best to put into Fade’s hands.
Grimacing at it for a moment, he turned to Verity, “Yeah, I don’t want to lose this, but I’m also not interested in turning back.”
He inspected it for a moment, then passed her the [Skill Stone], “Please store this with the others. Should I die, run. Try to make it out with all the [Skill Stones].”
Verity nodded and slipped it into her [Inventory], removing an uncommon drop for it to take the place of, then sliding that into her backpack.
They each carried one to share the load, but hers was noticeably more full than his was today, and for just the reason they’d gone over, so she could run and try to make it out with some of their profit.
Crimson had lost sight of the fact that he’d attempted to give up on the drops for this boss run.
He scooped up the [Earth Stone] and passed it to her with the two other drops, and picked up a fifth one that had been under the common drop. It was the last third of the key, and they snapped right into place when he put them together, the seems between each of the chunks fusing together.
The boss was likely behind the door at the end of the hall, so Crimson approached it and unlocked it with a key, prepared to just peek in for the moment, but the room beyond was empty. That reminded him, some of the adventurers mentioned that the room right before the boss was a safe room, where monsters couldn’t go.
He opened the door widely and stepped in, still on guard just in case, before relaxing. There was another door on the other side of the room, this one larger than the one they’d just stepped through. Imposing, threatening, and for the strange way his brain worked, inviting.
The room had some disintegrating couches, and carefully testing one of them, he found it held his weight, so he settled into recover all of his resources. That didn’t last long, as the second Verity had tried to join him on the couch it collapsed under their combined weight. Grumbling, he picked himself up, scattering wood dust everywhere, then remembered to act the gentleman and helped Verity to her feet as well.
They each sat on separate couches this time, and this time nobody ended up on the ground, much to his relief.
After a moment of quiet, Crimson said what he’d been musing on, “Would you be willing to let me take on the boss alone?”
Verity chuckled at him, “You getting greedy now that you’ve figured out your ability? Want to beat this boss first attempt too?”
Crimson shook his head, paused, then nodded, “Yeah, I suppose it is greed, but mainly because I don’t want to lose the drops we’ve already gotten. Specifically the [Skill Stones]. If my ability only triggers once, then I especially don’t want to lose [Robust]. I’m also greedy enough that I want to take on the boss anyway. Would you be willing to go along with my selfishness?”
“What would you have me do?”
“Wait here, I’ll fight my heart out, die, then come back to grab you.”
Verity sighed, then said with venom, “Sure, whatever. Do what you want, leave the girl alone and bored.”
He bowed apologetically, and she let out an intentionally heavier sigh before saying, “Fine. I’ll support you in this, but you owe me. I’ll work over what little [Skill] training I can in here. You better be grateful I understand how crazy you are. Other party members would be running from you now.”
“Yet you beat me into letting you join.”
“Yeah,” she grinned, “that was fun. I felt so much better after that. We should do it again some time.”
“Maybe some other time. Verity, thank you.”
She nodded, then waved, “Do your best, there’s no shame in dying here! Die here, so you’ll never die for real in a fight.”
He stood, nodded, then walked over to the big door. His hand were shaking a bit. He was trying to be as casual about it as possible, but he knew that he was walking to his death. Even if he knew logically it wouldn’t be permanent, his body couldn’t help but react.
He first checked his rapier. It had about 60% of its durability left. He’d been using it a bit too recklessly. He needed to practice techniques to help preserve durability during long dungeon runs. Buying a new sword every time was not a realistic solution.
Crimson refused to let nerves keep him any longer, and shoved open the door, entering the boss room.
Just like he’d heard, the boss was sitting on a throne at the far end of the room. It was too big for a throne obviously made for humans. The throne was resting on a dais, and at the base of the dais, banquet tables had been set up to act as platforms for archers. There were two of them, the Lv.9 variant. There were a pair each of knight-type variants and rogue type variants. He was essentially facing two full parties of goblins, plus the boss.
As Verity had said, this fight was practically made specifically to kill him. He specialized almost completely in single combat against a stronger opponent of human-like build and intelligence.
He’d managed against goblins fine enough because their build was decently human like, but against a group he would likely melt.
That then begged the question, why would he subject himself to this? Because it wasn’t in his nature to allow a weakness like this to persist. Today alone, he’d forced himself to use a sword-type he didn’t have much affection for, and he’d been successful with it. During the day exploring, his [Advanced Sword Mastery] had shot up by 3 levels. Progress was obvious as he crushed a personal weakness.
In a situation like this, outmatched, out numbered, and inexperienced, the only choice was to face the situation and learn how to handle it.
Fortunately, though he did think he would die, he didn’t think he’d go down easily. He had gotten some experience earlier fighting goblin parties just a little bit ago, so he understood some strategies that might work, but having to deal with two groups at once was a bit much for that strategy.
He tightened his grip on his rapier, trying to stop the shaking, then charged in, his [Adaptive Footwork], [Parry], [Ru Mikiri], and [Advanced Sword Mastery] all working in tandem to help him practically erase one of the rogue’s in a burst of action.
The second he saw it start to fall, he took off in a dead sprint to the side, dodging a pair of arrows and keeping him from getting surrounded.
Ideally, he’d hunt the archers first, but he worried about both their elevated position, and the boss, who had initially been leisurely watching the proceedings, but after Crimson had killed one of the rogues he had started to chant in a guttural language.
Expecting a magic attack, Crimson was surprised when he found that the spell the boss cast was a defensive buff. With [Defense Pierce], he still managed to get some damage through, but it was hardly anything.
After some more guttural chanting as Crimson wove between arrows and charging goblins, the next buff increased their damage. Crimson immediately realized that when a blow he was certain would deal 5% of his health in damage did 15%. A 3x damage multiplier? How broken!
The unexpected damage staggered him for a moment, and an arrow dug into his collarbone, cracking it and causing him to lose his grip on his rapier.
He swiftly caught it with his right hand, then disengaged, sprinting back in an erratic manner to avoid more arrows. He didn’t have the room he needed to cast a healing spell, so he decided to make another decision. Once the group of melee goblins had approached him, he sprinted through a gap in the formation, heading straight for the boss. [Ru Mikiri] helped him avoid some arrows, but one scraped past his ribs anyway, taking another 10% of his health.
Gritting his teeth he stabbed his rapier at the surprised boss, and managed to stab into its shoulder.
Doing so broke the buffs, he could feel the [Mana] they gave off brushing past them as it was released, like letting air out of a balloon.
Hope rushed through him, but it was immediately dashed as that same emotion made him more aware of his pain, and dulled his reaction speed momentarily, and in that moment, a backhand from the boss took 25% of his health, the rings on the back of the boss’ hand scraped across his face and cut deeply. Blood flowed into his right eye, further disorienting him, and leaving him fully open to the arrow that slammed into his thigh, he didn’t even have time to worry about that as he saw a war hammer from one of the knight goblins approaching his face.
Once it hit, everything went black.
For the first time since leaving his old world, Crimson experienced what it was like to die.