‘Let’s change things a bit for this round.’

What was the best way to break off the bad aftertaste of endless repetition? A Change of pace!

Although staying the same headspace helped when it came to learning something, everyone had their limits!

As such, Damian decided to start this round by harvesting Life Stones. Naturally, Damian didn’t have the confidence to end the time loop in this round. However…

Aside from actual progress, there were many different ways to make use of the time between each reset.

‘Filtering jackpots does feel better.’

Literally, anything could be a better option than facing constant deaths. That being said, Damian enjoyed pulling up winning tickets.

Most importantly, he made sure to memorize every Goblin’s location and the result of its dissection. That way, he could use this ‘fun’ activity to reduce his workload after everything was over.

Of course, as a result, Damian’s fatigue has intensified, giving him even less of a chance to learn anything at all in this round.

He could rest some more, but it was a waste of time when he could just start another round. Only, just handing his life to the Goblin was just as much of a waste.

‘Shall we test it then?’

Faced with worse and the worst, Damian just decided to go with the crazy idea he had earlier. Going inside and disposing of the Guardsmen as quickly as he could before…

‘What would happen if I interrupted the cutscene?’

Shutting off the glaring warnings of Combat Instincts, Damian rushed at the Throne Goblin while it was still drawing its shortswords!

‘...Seriously?’

As much as he prepared himself, the result was still beyond Damian’s expectations. The source of his most recent trauma, the green flash, was everywhere that his body dissipated before he could even realize it.

[ You have died. ]

His current thoughts were even delayed until his body returned back to the start!

‘He took out everything at once.’

Damian was only able to see it for a split second thanks to his abuse of Combat Instincts, but the Throne Goblin’s slow movement immediately stopped once he stood in front of it.

In an instant, this monster of a monster took out his shortswords and left the green energy spread everywhere like a wave. However, this nightmare fuel didn’t come without a cost.

Before the green energy consumed everything, Damian saw the Throne Goblin whither away into an old husk. From the looks of it, interrupting the cutscene meant game over for both sides.

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‘Well… That was educational.’

Damian took a minute to calm himself down, this was just another death, nothing more, nothing less… It had to be that way.

Having confirmed that being a little late didn’t bring any change to the inner room, Damian stood up and went to work.

Naturally, he wasn’t going to tire himself by opening up Goblins again. He just moved away the ‘empty’ ones while his memory was still fresh.

Following that, he went ahead and had the same light meal, got some proper rest, and…

‘Save.’

The new training conditions were all set and ready to go!

A furthermore direct save would be bypassing the Goblin Guardsmen, but Damian preferred to keep the warm-up as part of the training routine. Of course, the cutscene was also avoided.

Swish!

Just because Damian was rested didn’t mean that the difficulty dropped down. However, he felt that everything was more clear.

The speed was still the same, but his perception of it was a little faster. The delay in body response was also reduced a little further.

‘There is definitely a big difference.’

Despite the body itself experiencing no growth or tempering, the Damian who died over and over was different. Let alone keeping up for 30 minutes, he was edging close to an hour.

‘Almost 50 minutes.’

Most importantly, Damian finally managed to nick the Throne Goblin a second time ever since his first attempt. An opening that could be exploited was growing closer and closer.

Nonetheless…

[ You have died. ]

‘It will still take some time.’

True victory still couldn’t be realized. More progress was needed.

[ You have died. ]

[ You have… ]

[ You… ]

Damian's deaths didn’t end. They were no longer so helpless. It was just a nick or two at the start, but although not vital, it didn’t take long for such marks to go over a dozen.

The most important fact was that Damian didn’t allow himself to lose it once again. He took in every round with every detail, using it to improvise on his next attempt.

Mindlessly repeating the battle might have already proven itself effective, but total awareness had a much more powerful effect. A completely repeated battle no longer occurred.

In each new round, Damian managed to add on another change no matter how small it was!

It wasn’t just Damian’s shortsword skills that were growing, his evasion had to evolve so that it could create more openings for him, and concrete evidence of that quickly surfaced.

[ Combat Evasion’s Level has risen. ]

After a few more dozen deaths, Damian was pleased to hear the System’s chime. Not only was this his first natural skill level up, but it was a skill that he built up from scratch.

Just by receiving this notification, Damian’s confidence rose to the ceiling. This was an affirmation that everything he did so far wasn’t without meaning!

‘Soon.’

Of course, even without all of this, Damian could already feel that victory was close!

“Green!”

The Throne Goblin shouted in contempt as a third of its arm was sliced through. The Aura-covered shortsword was no longer so slow that it could only leave nicks!

[ You have died. ]

‘Very soon!’

As a result, Damian was slightly slower in moving his neck. However, only that little difference stopped Damian from keeping the battle going and delivering one more meaningful attack, and…

[ A Specialized Skill has passed a certain threshold, surpassing its Origin Skill. A new Skill will be created. ]

It was soon to disappear.