Both sides wouldn’t be able to surprise one another. The assassins lost their best weapon, but they still had the numerical advantage. At this point in time, I decided to move fifty meters away from the exit of the floor and then ready my arrows in front of me instead of inside my quiver.
All of a sudden, I had this idea, but I didn’t know if it would be worth the hassle of training since I wasn’t planning to use conventional bows. Still, I decided to try anyway. I tossed some arrows upward and then grabbed them in nocked them in quick succession… I didn’t fire them, and I messed up on the third arrow, but my nocking speed improved a bit.
‘I still have ten enchanted arrows… I can make a few more if they take their time, but I can’t use all my mana before the battle. I bet the maid has more potions, but she will keep them to make sure that the girl will survive no matter what.’
I should have bought some… I should have a stock of them, but I thought that it would be better to have them once I have my magic bag. My plans were far from perfect, but I knew that my future steps were pretty good when it came to progress. Still, when it came to unexpected things, I was pretty slow on the uptake… I needed to get used better to such situations.
The atmosphere suddenly got weird and then everyone grabbed their weapons and assumed their positions. All of a sudden, they heard a weird sound approaching… it seemed like something made of glass. Soon enough, the group saw a sphere falling from the stairs and then it began to emit a massive wave of smoke.
Everyone clicked their tongues in annoyance… of course, the enemies would do even more underhanded things. Still, all of a sudden, an explosion happened on the stairs and then the smoke dissipated in the opposite direction. I had fired one of my enchanted arrows and thanks to the extra power added thanks to the bow, the temperature in the area increased quite a bit.
‘Please, don’t send more of those…’
Unfortunately, the annoying sound came out again… the enemies were assuming that we couldn’t do that more than a few times and they had a point. For a moment, I wondered if I should save my arrows or disperse the smoke. If I waited a bit, I could wound the enemies and disperse the smoke all at once, but I couldn’t tell without my sight when it would be the next moment.
I tried to sharpen my senses a bit, but I didn’t notice any movements… I heard the sound of another smoke grenade coming from the boss chamber, though. Soon enough, it began to emit a lot more smoke and I could feel the tension rising. At that moment, I fired another enchanted arrow.
After the explosion, the smoke dispersed and then several cloaked figures appeared in front of us. Some of them rolled on the ground with their cloaks burning, others were pushed away from the stairs and back to the boss' chamber.
When one of them stopped rolling, they found Rose right in front of them… her arm blurred and in the next moment, the head of the target rolled on the ground. It was scary to think that I had someone like that watching my back since we got inside the dungeon.
You received 333 experience points.
‘Note to self… let’s not piss off that maid.’
The three guards stepped forward and swung their weapons to kill the remaining assassins, but those three enemies jumped away with weird movements. It felt like their bodies were made of rubber or something. They landed on the wall above the entrance of the floor and stayed there for a couple of seconds and then they saw the blonde and launched themselves at her.
The girl and her maid stepped forward to face the enemies, but soon an explosion happened right below the assassins and the blast pushed them upward. Flames erupted when my arrow hit the ground and then caused them some serious damage. Even before they could fall, Rose beheaded two of them, and the blonde girl stabbed one in the chest with her swords.
You received 333 experience points.
You received 333 experience points.
You received 333 experience points.
‘Scary…’
I helped them with that, but it still felt a bit surreal… the girl didn’t hesitate even a bit, and that made me realize that nobles were a lot more scary than the influence they held. Still, I wondered why those guys gave me the same amount of experience. I caused more damage on this one attack than in the others, after all.
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Identification consumed ten points of mana, so it was a waste to use in a battle like that, so I couldn’t tell their parameters. In any case, soon enough, all the remaining assassins left the stairs that connected that floor with the boss chamber… exactly twelve of them. Their numbers were a bit off, but that didn’t matter.
Three of them tossed smoke grenades toward us… one toward the guards, one toward me, and one toward the girl and her maid. I had only the blink of an eye to aim and fire my arrow, but I pulled it off… I didn’t know how, but my arrow hit one of the grenades and pushed the others to the side thanks to the explosion. The smoke emerged, but only on the sides of the battlefield.
The assassins landed and then I could feel their vicious gaze on me… I could tell that I had become one of their real targets. Still, the three guards stepped up to protect me and the other two. I was really grateful for that... I never felt such a bloodlust before, it made my legs freeze.
All the enemies pulled their knives from their cloaks… all of them had the same weird curved shape with some deformities and almost holes in the blades. At the same time, they emitted a purple glow of the same intensity as my bow… I could tell that those were cursed daggers. Being as much as slightly scratched by one of those in such a place without a Priest was the same as a death sentence, so I could feel the cold sweat running down my back.
Still, I remained focused and just grabbed three arrows to unleash them as fast as I could. Even if they were fast, they knew that I wouldn’t miss if they got too close. In the worst-case scenario, I would end up with some burn marks and they would end up in countless pieces.
The three guards knew that they couldn’t waste that chance and let the enemies attack, so they decided to use the active effects of their weapons. The ax wielder raised his weapon and then smashed the ground with it… I frowned at that, but soon saw the whole place cracking. Some fissures appeared in the ceiling and then countless stalactites began to fall on the area… even above us.
While I was cursing the moron, the swordsman swung his sword horizontally and fired a massive wave of flames toward the enemies. Some of the enemies were busy with the stalactites and began to burn thanks to the attack. Some of them avoided the flames but were hit by the stalactites in the air.
Those who avoided both were hit by a barrage of wind thrusts that the spearman caused… blood began to gush from their bodies as they got holes inside them. Still, those enemies managed to fall on their feet with those kinds of wounds. Only four of them died.
Direct confrontations weren’t their forte… even with numbers, they expected that they would have an easy time ambushing us and killing the blonde girl since she obviously would be at the back of the formation. The remaining numbers would be to just get rid of the witnesses in the chaos.
Still, those guys were professionals… three of them charged toward the warriors, and then jumped with their arms wide open… I heard the sound of something weird… like a lighter. Without hesitation, I hit them with one of my arrows and an explosion even more powerful than before happened when my arrow hit them.
You received 655 experience points.
You received 655 experience points.
You received 655 experience points.
The guards were pushed backward and were hit by the flames as well… Rose protected her master by pushing herself in front of her, but the flames made her flinch. That was weird… the power of my arrows just increased three times for no reason? There was something off about those three guys…
The remaining enemies emerged from the curtain of smoke and then threw their cursed daggers at those two… Another explosion happened in front of them when I fired another arrow. The power this time had returned to normal, but at least it didn’t burn them. The shockwave also stopped the daggers in the air, making them spin before falling.
I felt a shiver for some reason, and then Rose charged toward the smoke curtain like a lightning bolt when the enemies fell on it. We kept our guard raised, but nothing happened… when the smoke dissipated, Rose emerged from it and around her, the heads of four assassins were on the ground.
You received 350 experience points.
You received 350 experience points.
You received 350 experience points.
You received 350 experience points.
Everyone sighed in relief when they confirmed that the battle was over… but soon they realized that one enemy was missing from the initial sixteen that showed up on that floor.
“One escaped… probably to inform that the job failed.”
I had a really hard time holding back from clicking my tongue. The maid was right… it couldn’t be helped since they left before the last attack. I was already bothered that some people in the group already knew about my skill, but now people in the underworld would be aware as well. Hopefully, there were others more skilled, and soon they would forget about me.
The blond girl didn’t have the chance to fight this time since she knew that she was their target and who knows what they would have done if she exposed herself, so she used her mana to heal the others who got burned a bit. I thought that they would blame me for it, but soon I sensed the smell of something flammable in the air… in the suicidal attacks of those three assassins, they probably had intended to explode themselves beforehand. So, my attack was probably powered by some sort of chemical bomb.
‘That was a lot of experience gained… was it because they were strong or was it because they obtained that much experience while fighting until here?’
The last fight alone gave me enough experience to even improve my dexterity and that was quite something… in any case, we finally had the chance to relax a bit when the reinforcements from the guild arrived.
‘What the fuck…’
There were two parties who arrived to rescue us… they arrived a bit late, but I could see some blood in their weapons. I wondered if they had killed the remaining assassin or the other four that went missing… It was a question for another time. A wave of exhaustion was taking over my body.
In any case, the leader of the party was a bald man who looked to be in his forties… the guy could only be described as a hulking mass of muscles. His arms alone were thicker than me. His fists looked like they could smash boulders with ease… I immediately understood that I couldn't win against this guy not even in one million years…