We were finally inside the dungeon and it was extremely dark. There was probably some source of light as we could atleast make out our surroundings but it was hard to tell where the light was coming from. It was just everywhere in an equal distribution which was physically not possible if it actually came from a single source. And we couldn't see any light sources here. So either these walls emit their own light or the laws of physics in this world are warped.

We started forward on the only visible path. Pauli was a little behind and had already let go off my hand. Conversely, Shirley had gotten closer and was tightly gripping my hand. She was probably scared.

Unfortunately for her, I had her let go of my hand and walk a little further behind with Pauli. This was because I was the only fighter in the team and had to be ready. I took out two swords, one in each hand. They were normal iron shortswords, completely identical and obtained from the same type of monster. I actually still had one more of the same. Anyway, the reason I took out two swords was to try out a new style: dual-wielding, and was hoping to gain a skill. 

We walked forward with me in the lead. I had already set party experience to be distributed equally. You can't divide 100% into 3 equal parts, so Pauli(who was the lowest level among us) got the 34%.

Anyways, we were still walking, and we came across our first enemy in the dungeon.

Lesser White Skeleton LVL 50

It was a skeleton with white bones. And thats it. It neither had a weopen nor a piece of cloth.

(Its level 50! The first monster we come across is higher levelled than any monster outside!)

I was excited. And in my excitement, I dashed in and slashed it with the sword in my right hand. My sword went through its ribs and shattered every bone in its way. The skeleton died before it could even attack. As I was admiring its disappearing body and waiting for any drops, I noticed my sword with which I attacked.

(Its ruined!)

Yes, it was ruined. Its blade was gone. Not just chipped, it was gone! It was like a blunt sword but without the smooth/straight edge. If you looked at it from the side, it was like a miniature model of a mountain range where the blade used to be.

Shirley noticed it too.

"I've heard that skeletal monstors are resistant to slashing or piercing attacks." (Shirley.)

Yeah. I've heard it too. Also, that they are weak against blunt attacks.

I put back the two swords and took out 4 wooden shields. I only had shields made of wood so I didn't have much choice. I did have 2 iron shields at some point but since I never intented to be a tank like character, I sold them to the village merchant.

I gave 1 shield each to my two companions and held the remaining two in each of my hands. Since iron was useless, wood wasn't going to do anything to the skeleton but it could atleast block their attacks. This was the reason I gave these two the shield. As for myself, I kept them for training. Even though they couldn't do much damage but if I were to aim at their weak points, which were their joints, I could manage, or atleast try to and see what happens. If it works, then it would be great because I have alot of these wooden shields. They were common drops and we picked up a lot. Right now, most of them were in Pauli's inventory.

Having gotten equipped, we moved on. By the way, the skeleton didn't drop anything.

(Was it THAT weak?)

It was the weakest monsters who had a high no-drop rate. Then this probably really was the weakest monster of this dungeon.

Another white skeleton appeared without us having walked for 1 minute.

As I was fighting with the shields for the first time, I decided to not go for the one-hit K.O. battle.

I went in front of it and took a stance. As it noticed me, it started running towards me. As it reached me, it raised its arm and brought it down on me as an attack. It was extremely slow but I took it on with the shield to see how it held up. The attack blew some splinters off the shield but didn't break through. Looked like the shield could take on 3-5 such attacks before breaking.

As I had blocked the attack, I brought down the edge of the other shield on its elbow and broke its arm.

The skeleton didn't look the least bit affected and attacked with its other arm. I had learnt my lesson as to not block the attack with the shield, so I simply parried it and this time went for the knee joint. With a smooth turn, I brought the edge of my shield to hit its knee joint from the side. A lot of momentum built up due to the rotatory motion and after breaking the first knee joint, it crushed the second one also. Having lost its legs, the skeleton now fell on its back but it still looked unfazed(not that I could tell even if it was in pain). With its last attached limb, it turned itself over and started crawling towards me. 

The battle had gone on long enough, so I just broke its spine at the place it met the skull with a simple kick. 

My thoughts on the battle: Too easy. The skeleton was so slow that its attacks would never hit but the other party's(me) always would. What good is an opponent who can never hit but gets hit alot?

Anyway, we left behind the disappearing carcass and moved on. I was even more confindent in my theory that this was the weakest monster of this dungeon. Despite it being higher levelled, it was weaker than the monsters outside.

As me moved forward, we came across 2 of those things together.

"Any of you wants to try and fight?' (Me)

If these were weakest monsters of the dungeon, it was probably a good idea to get a bit of experience with these guys.

"Fight? With the shield? Are you serious?" (Shirley)

"I want to try." (Pauli)

"What!?" (Shirley)

"Its useless if we just stand back." (Pauli)

"If you're going to do it, I'm coming too!" (Shirley)

"Okay then. I'll kill one of them and leave the other to you." (Me)

While we were walking, I had had an idea, so I tried it out. Since the wooden shields were round, I held one of them in a frisbee hold and threw it at a skeleton. The shield missed and went on and disappeared somewhere in the darkness.

"Hihihihi." (Trichia)

"Hahahahahaha!" (Shirley)

"Pfft." (Pauli)

I heard everyone laugh. This was a bit emabarrassing. 

The two skeletons had noticed me and ran towards me. With a quick motion, I destroyed the spine at the base of the skull of one of them and it collapsed. What collapsed? Not the skeleton, just the skull. The headless thing was still moving but it had more than lost half its HP.

(I was right. This is a weak point of the skeletons.)

Even without the head, the skeleton could target me, which led me to conclude that it probably didn't 'see' its enemies but sensed or something like that.

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I destroyed its spine at the bottom(the place it met the hip bone) and its HP finally plummetted to 0.

But this caused my shield heavy damage. The spine was probably a lot stronger here and the side of the shield with which I attacked was now useless. What happened was like when you pin down a piece of wood and hammer it hard on one end till the part it barely falling off. 

I kept the shield back in my inventory and took out two new ones. The reason I kept it back was that it was made of wood and could be used to upkeep a fire. 

As only one skeleton was left, I shouted at my companions to get ready while easily dodging its attacks. Then I ran back and behind them so they could take over. 

It first came attacking Pauli who was a bit more in front. She managed to dodge its arm swinging attack but with large movements. The skeleton attacked again but due to her previously large movement she was in a bad place to dodge so she hurriedly brought up her shield in an attempt to parry. Maybe due to her uneasy footing or maybe the force of the attack was too much or maybe both, she stumbled a few steps back and fell. 

"Shirley!" (Me)

I shouted as the skeleton moved in to attack the now defenseless Pauli. I was standing back ready to intercept but I decided not to move in until the last moment and shouted out to Shirley to take the lead. 

She let out a wierd cry and rammed into the skeletob with her shield, causing it to fall down and then stood between the skeleton and Pauli.

"Pauli, are you alright? Can you continue?" (Me)

I shouted to Pauli to confirm her status. 

"Yes, I'm okay. I can continue." (Pauli)

"Good! And you too Shirley. Though the attack was bad for the shield, its more important to save your companion than a piece of equipment!" (Me)

I praised Shirley. 

Pauli got up and took a stance beside Shirley. The skeleton got up too.

"These things probably dont have a concept of stamina so you better finish this quick!" (Me)

"But how are we supposed to attack it if we use the shield to defend!?" (Shirley)

"There's two of you and one enemy. Coordinate your attacks!" (Me)

By this time, the skeleton had starting moving towards them. Now that I looked at its HP bar, Shirley's attack seemed to have done some damage but it was far from enough.

I saw Pauli say something to Shirley and they started moving in opposite directions a few steps at the time.

The skeleton went towards Pauli again and raised its arm to attack. I was standing ready should anything happen. Just then, Shirley moved in from behind and attacked at its knee joint. 

(Ah! Their plan was to first immobilise the enemy and then take it out easily. Nice! But..)

The feat wasn't that easy to manage. Shirley probably tried to imitate me from the previous battle but their was a huge different between us. My strength stat was over 1500 while hers was a little over 100. 

And the result was as expected, the attack didn't break the joint but the force was enough to deflect its attack from Pauli who was preparing to parry.

For the next 5 minutes, they used similar tactics. While one of them defended, the other attacked. Their were some moments where I felt I had to move in but they somehow managed by themselves and finally were able break its knee joint. Yeah, that was all they managed in full 5 minutes of battle and were huffing badly. Their SP was considerably low.

"I think you should stop there. We still have a distance to cover." (Me)

Even though I had said that, I waited for their reaponse before moving in. The skeleton was now crawling on the ground and would be a lot easier to finish, so I would let them if they said so.

"*huff* please..*huff* take over..." (Pauli)

It was Pauli who said that. I never expected it from her. I always thought that she was the more 'dont give up' type.

Anyways, I moved in and made quick work of the skeleton. Only when the skeleton disappeared, did they seem to find relief and fell down at the same time. They were huffing pretty badly so I started bandaging any injuries they sustained during battle while being alert to any incoming enemies at the same time. I was happy they did so well. Well, not defeating a single enemy could probably not be called doing well but for non-combatants like them, they did great. Their teamwork was good and I praised them for it. I also gave some advice but neither of them replied as they just lay there breathing heavily.

Finally, as they seemed to regain some breath, did they open their mouth and Shirley was the first to do so.

"You're a monster!" (Shirley)

(This again?)

"How can you fight these things and make it look as if its so easy!?" (Shirley)

"Its a difference of experience. You might also get this good someday." (Me)

I wasn't lying. This was not only because of my high stats but mainly because of skills. I had trained many a times before in RL as well as VR even before this game ever came out. If you don't believe me, try and remember the fights I had before meeting the dragon emporer. I think I was level 1 and my first opponent was a level 12 snake. I'm not bragging or anything, this is just the truth. Its all a matter of experience and I'm not talking about EXP.

"I highly doubt that." (Pauli)

Even Pauli seemed depressed at her lack of ability. Having someone right in front of you who was leagues above you probably wasn't the best remedy for confidence.

"You will. Believe me." (Me)

I inadvertantly patted her head to lighten her mood. She didn't react to it but her face got a bit red.

"Hey! I'm also sad!" (Shirley)

(Did she get jealous that I only patted Pauli?)

I smiled and patted Shirley too. Shirley made a pleased face but the moment was destroyed by her stomach rumbling.

"Hahahahaha.." (Me)

"H.hey! D.dont laugh at a l.lady!" (Shirley)

"Didn't you laugh too when my shield throw missed?" (Me)

She averted her eyes at my statement.

"Anyways, its getting late and we're all probably hungry so lets quickly find the safe room and we'll set up camp." (Me)

" "Yes." " (Pauli and Shirley)

We kept moving forward after that and I destroyed every skeleton we came across.

After about half an hour, we found a narrow path that opened up into a big space. At the other end of the space from the narrow passage, was a big door. It was probably the boss room behind it, so this had to be the safe room. I asked Trichia just to be sure and she confirmed it.

Pauli and I set up Shirley's stuff while she cooked. We weren't going to stay so there wasn't a need to set up a place to sleep for us.

Having finished, we ate together and said our goodbyes for the day.

"Log out."