Finally hearing the melody of his success, Damian’s body gave out as he collapsed next to the Hobgoblin’s corpse.

[ Combat State has concluded. Would you- ]

‘No!’

Despite giving it his all to reach this point, Damian couldn’t bring himself to save his progress. There were simply too many risks!

‘If another stray comes back…’

Let alone stronger monsters, even fighting one or two Goblins could be considered a challenge for the current Damian. His stamina was basically at its limit.

Rather than Save now and send himself into a possible loop of inescapable death and suffering, Damian still preferred to redo the battle that he already won, in case something happened…

“Huu…”

{You did it! You actually did it!}

Unlike Damian who felt like he was breathing his last, Iris exploded with excitement after staring in shock for a few minutes. Amid her thrill, she went ahead and hugged herself!

Despite being a ghost, actual tears of happiness trickled down Iris’ face. She expected to see herself die another dozen times at least before any breakthrough would be made.

She was extremely delighted that she was proven wrong, Damian was truly an awesome person!

{I knew it, you really are different from m-}

Although Iris wasn’t sure how to spell out all the praises that crowded her head, she eventually settled on the one that they all boiled down to. But just then, she suddenly received a bigger shock.

{Huh?!}

Iris had hugged her own body half-consciously out of joy, and even when she realized that, she didn’t feel like it was an overreaction. However, the face that she saw when she got so close wasn’t hers.

It was the face of a black-haired man!

While it was a completely fine face, the shock of it suddenly replacing her own sprang Iris back to the limit of her floating distance. Yet, once she looked at it again, everything was back to normal.

‘Was that…’

“Sorry, I also want to celebrate, but I need a few more minutes.”

The voice she heard had always been hers, only different in style, but these words had a distant echo that Iris could now hear. It was clearly in the voice of a man!

‘Damian?’

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Iris tried to float closer as Damian was still trying to catch his breath. However, she could no longer see the face she saw no matter how close she got.

Even when giving it her all to focus, she could only see some black hair mixed with hers. At this point, Iris confirmed that her body wasn’t changing, it was her perception that did!

‘What’s the cause of the change?’

As someone who was incredibly curious about Damian, Iris couldn’t shake her head off what had just happened.

Was the trigger something simple like being happy or less distant? Or was it because she felt endlessly grateful for that split second?

“Hah, we need to get a move on.

Just when Iris was about to get lost in her own world, Damian stood up with difficulty. If it was up to him, he would let himself get knocked out and worry about everything later, but that obviously wasn’t an option.

Not to mention that the blood was likely going to start smelling soon, attracting strays even if they weren’t targeting the Den itself, every minute he rested more would make it harder for him to stand up.

Although Damian wasn’t exactly a fitness expert, he at least knew that once tense muscles truly relaxed, getting them to move again would be harder than forcing them to work extra.

Most importantly…

“Iris, let me know if anything approaches the entrance.”

It was currently the bonus harvest stage. This was the part that he enjoyed most when playing Fate’s Guide, getting rewarded for the repeated effort!

{...I understand.}

Iris’ eyes were still dazed, but Damian was too focused on his target to notice. Since it took his all to push himself to handle the battle’s aftermath, he couldn’t split his focus between doing so and watching the door.

‘Pull yourself together, Iris!’

At one point, Iris wanted to just ask Damian the questions that puzzled her. She still refrained in the end. Obviously, this wasn’t the right time for that.

She had to focus on the one task she could do!

“Let’s hope this helps.”

Trying his best to remember the tedious process that went through to open up the first Goblin, Damian wiped the shortsword on the closest Goblin’s rags before stabbing it in the chest.

Naturally, Damian’s first target was the lootbox-like Goblin corpses! He only had one try at winning a prize last time, but he now had 7 pulls!

‘It’s still going to take a while.’

One only needed some force to penetrate the Goblins’ necks using the shortsword, but their chests were much more resilient. They were nothing like fish on a cutting board.

‘I can’t only rely on Aura, but…’

Considering that he only had 3 more charges of Aura left, it wasn’t realistic to use them to handle everything. However, as long as he used sparingly, Damian believed that he could make the best of both worlds!

Pulling out his Aura, Damian used the extra edge to get through the thickest layer of skin and muscle, and instead of waiting for one more minute to utilize the next charge, he started cutting through the rest of the muscles as much as he could.

Damian was already able to call on Aura once again, but he kept going. He targeted the thinner and weaker parts using the shortsword until he reached the Goblin’s ribcage.

‘Your turn again.’

Without hesitation, Damian called out the platinum luster again to cut through the bones… Just enough so he could pull out the heart!

Heartlessly pulling out his second lootbox, Damian quickly cut it open in anticipation. The result of his hard work was…

“Finally.”

A dim white light shone out through the gaps, announcing that Damian’s first choice was a winning ticket!