After the lunch break, Nimir looked completely fine and rested, he also asked to face the boss alone this time, but I wasn’t willing to let go of all that experience.
“We don’t have time to waste and it will be annoying if you get hurt.”
“Okay…”
He was reasonable and didn’t try to argue, I could have blown up the boss and killed it in a few seconds, but I let Nimir get some hits in order for us to share the experience. After getting the mana core, we headed to the next section.
“We will take turns facing them, and then we will only get the easiest parts to dismantle.”
“Alright, doing this kind of job with only two people would take too much time, I guess. Is there a skinning class out there?”
“Not in the Bastion Empire.”
If I had known about it, I would have looked for it. In any case, using his previous experience, Nimir fought the Frost Lizards while avoiding their attacks and countering just enough to hinder their movements. I could tell that he had gotten stronger, his arms didn’t even move when he had to block the attacks, and when he chopped the limbs of the monster, he did it very cleanly.
“Increasing my strength will help me with the dismantling job… I guess I should make it reach at least level twenty.”
When my turn came, I just smashed the head of the monster with my Heavy Bone Bolts… thanks to the earth enchantment, they were as powerful as cannon balls, and since their size was a lot smaller, the impact was a lot more powerful.
I knew the cause of it, when two objects collide, the force applied during the collision is distributed over the contact area. A smaller object has a smaller surface area than a larger one, so the same force is concentrated on a smaller spot, increasing the pressure. Even if two objects have the same weight, the speed and shape of the object can affect how much damage is caused.
Smaller objects have a more concentrated impact, allowing them to penetrate surfaces or materials more easily. This penetration means that a smaller object can directly damage the internal structures of the target, whereas a larger object may only cause surface damage.
“Your weapon is kind of unfair.”
“I can say the same about your senses. Anyway, no need to compete, we are working together and we fight in different ways.”
I wondered if I should just use my short swords against the monsters to make him feel less bored. I also needed that kind of experience, after all. Still, I also felt like a moron by not using the best method to dispose of the enemies.
Having the experience of a previous life and not being particularly hot-blooded was making me a lot more pragmatic when it came to fighting… as long as I could defeat the enemies before they could hurt me, I was fine either way. Still, I also felt like this would come to bite me in the back someday.
As usual, the first floor was a cinch, we only wasted time dismantling the monsters. The best parts were the ones in the torso, but we preferred to get the tails and the limbs instead to save time.
Once we got to the next floor, we didn't notice any differences. The frost lizards had the same strength and numbers… it must be that kind of dungeon, where the difficulty level increases every three floors. Still, we couldn't relax just yet.
“Hm?”
Nimir stopped to sniff around after he dealt with one of the Frost Lizards. He moved his head from one side to the other like he was a dog trying to look for a scent. It was kind of funny to see that… I bet he would have better senses if he transformed, but he was still getting used to that. All of a sudden, I wondered if they had higher levels of transformation, like super beastkin transformation level two and so on… it would be pretty sick if they had.
“What is wrong?”
“I caught a glimpse of someone's scent here… it is pretty faint, so maybe I could be wrong.”
“I wanted to say that is the case since we had to fight the boss and the quests in the guild are accumulating, but considering my luck, it would be foolish to believe that.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It is hard to explain… anyway, I will fight now and you will be focused on sensing the scent.”
I didn't want to say that I was unlucky, it would be pretty lame to say that when I had the golden chance of having a second chance in life. Still, a lot of annoying things tend to happen when my plans are usually going well. I wanted to think that it was just the Cosmos trying to make me pay for my second chance in life.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Some people definitely had been here…”
“If you are that certain, then you are probably right. Any smell that you recognize?”
“No, and they don’t look like they had been investigating us.”
I had no idea how Nimir could tell that, but it wasn’t important… that was a problem that we weren’t expecting. I quickly connected the dots… someone was ahead and probably had been there for a while. Grinding for materials? That was very unlikely, few adventurers in the area would have such a massive magic bag.
“It could be a diversion, I guess… They are looking for the slaves that escaped from the town or in the sewers, but they are probably here instead.”
“You really think so? If they had the chance to come here, why not leave the area entirely?”
“I don’t know their situation, but I guess if they are here, they probably needed a place to rest and recover their strength before trying to run away for real… Still, for them to reach the dungeon like that, they must have had external help.”
It was hard to imagine anyone going against the lord of the town for no apparent reason… someone working for the lord, even less so. Still, I couldn’t think of any other explanation. Putting that aside, that put us in a bad spot… Nimir needed that class and I couldn’t imagine the runaway slaves receiving us with open arms.
“Do you think that we can help them?”
I furrowed my eyebrows while looking at Nimir… as if I needed any more aggravations in my life. I was already walking a thin line by helping him, after all. Helping fugitives wouldn’t be easy and it would be the same as putting another target on my back.
“No, we can’t. Even if let them see that we are half-humans, they will probably think that we are just here to make them drop their guard.”
Nimir went silent showing a difficult expression trying to hide his sadness. I assumed that he would want to fly solo and avoid others, but it looked like a kid like that couldn’t have become jaded that easily. That was impressive… but that was also pretty naive.
In any case, Nimir needed the last class for my plans to work completely. I also needed my next class. If the fugitives were wounded, we had a chance to deal with them, but I didn’t want to kill people just because they were on the way to get to my next class.
“Let’s advance and see what we will have to do… then we can decide based on what we will see here.”
“... Alright.”
Once again, we alternated between the enemies that tried to block our path… when I didn’t have to fight, I considered my options. The first one was to wait for those guys to leave the dungeon… somehow, they got inside the dungeon when no one was looking, but leaving would be different. Even if they manage that, they will have to cross hundreds of kilometers.
There was a chance that they wouldn’t leave until they were strong enough to force their way out… and who knows how long that will take. The next option was to ambush them… I had a bunch of camouflage scrolls, after all. It was feasible… with some luck, we could knock them out without killing them. Still, they were battle slaves, they should be pretty strong. Taking my chances would be pretty dangerous.
There was also the unknown factor: Nimir. I probably couldn’t count on him to dispose of people who were in unfortunate situations like him. I didn’t want to force him either. He might have to kill someone to protect himself one day, but this doesn’t have to be right now.
My head began to hurt while thinking about that troublesome situation. My hand cannon wouldn’t last for long, so perhaps I could use it to deal with this annoying situation… whatever happens, I will treat it as self-defense. Besides, we still had some time before we decided to head to the final boss chamber, after all. As usual, thinking along those lines was the same as jinxing myself… even without saying it out loud.
When we reached the fourth floor, the Frost Lizards began to show up in pairs and they dashed while firing their ice darts. Still, I disposed of them quickly enough with my heavy bolts. Nimir looked at me wondering if I was planning to do that all the time from now on. Based on the experience gained, I wanted to do that…
You received 20 experience points.
You received 20 experience points.
“I will deal with the ones on the left side, you deal with the other.”
“Okay… wait.”
I frowned and then Nimir moved from one side to the other while touching the ground… he did that a bunch of times in several spots.
“There was a body of a monster here a while ago… and there was one here too… with a mana core.”
“... They must be hunting them for food and storing as much as possible for their journey back.”
“What would they be using the mana cores for? Would battle slaves have skills that would require them in any shape or form?”
“It is odd, indeed…”
When the situation is that weird, it is better to get away from it since the mysteries would only make things hard to predict. I had read a bunch about the history of the empire, but I never heard of something like that. Still, it was only to be expected since they were people from other lands… they definitely had some knowledge that humans didn’t have and vice-versa.
A bunch of mana cores would be useful for us to rank up… why would I start to think like a thief? Worrying about dangerous situations in a dungeon certainly wasn’t doing wonders for my moral compass.
All of a sudden, I felt a lot lighter, so I assumed that night had arrived. We were in the middle of the fourth floor, so we decided to keep going for a bit longer. After crossing a couple of kilometers, we found the entrance to the next floor.
“Let’s camp here and rest.”
“The smell is stronger ahead…”
“Another reason for us to stop here.”
I was hungry and I also needed some peace and quiet to put my thoughts into perspective. Too many things and pieces of information were obtained during the day. I usually welcomed information when it fell on my lap, but I only felt bothered since it made me question a lot of things this time around.
We prepared the food and ate it in silence… the end of our journey together was approaching and that made him feel more gloomy and the other situation didn’t help either.
“I am going to the bathroom.”
“Okay.”
I kept guarding our surroundings and looking at the possible spots the enemies could emerge from, so I didn’t notice that Nimir went to the next floor…