I ENTERED THE SPEAKEASY AND WALKED OVER TO JEREMY. “HEY, DUNGEON BOSS HAS PROBABLY RESPAWNED, GET READY AND COME OUTSIDE.” I SAID, RESTING THE BLUNT EDGE OF THE SWORD ON MY SHOULDER. I WALKED OUT AND AFTER A FEW MINUTES JEREMY HAD ALL HIS BOWS, INCLUDING THE ONES WITHOUT STONE ARROWHEADS.
I was hoping that some gnolls and kobolds had respawned, I needed to level up my swordsmanship before I faced the dungeon boss or I would probably die, but just in case I wasn’t able to do such a thing I kept my trusty mace on my belt loop.
We both started jogging to the dungeon, it didn’t take too long before we arrived.
“You got the hairbrush?”
“Yeah, here.” He said, right after applying it on his own hair.
Would I get dermatitis from this? Probably not, still something to be aware of.
He didn’t look any bit surprised at my sudden transformation from slightly toned mace wielder to bodybuilder swordsman, but I guess I hadn’t had any growth in a while, and it was bound to happen.
“When we get there, don’t kill any gnolls or kobolds before I get a level in swordsmanship, mind hasn’t taken effect yet.”
“Hmm?” He seemed confused by that statement. “Mind just makes you smarter and have better balance.”
“No, it improves your overal technique, and how you move your body, was everybody not taught this?”
“Can’t say I was.” He muttered. “Anyway, you’re a big man now, what level are you?”
“8,” I said, we both got a move on, we didn’t want to waste time chatting when we could be fighting gnolls and kobolds.
“Ah, shit, I need to level up more, I’m only level 7.” He complained.
“Ha! You foul weakling, you’ll never beat the likes of me.” I joked, he gave a light chuckle.
“Well, I can ask Mole to bring me back to the old training facility, I doubt anyone has beaten the hobgoblin yet. There’ll be lots of XP only for me, you aren’t invited.” He gloated.
“Well... You bring up a good point, the hobgoblin probably didn’t die, there could be more in fact, we just need to be certain we’re able to face something like that, it was too fast.”
“Well, I say level 10 is a good milestone before we go back.”
“Why level 10?”
“Oh yeah, you’re not from this world.” He remembered. “Yeah, when you achieve level 10, you can pick a class, if you have done something amazing or if you have enough stats in the correct place, you can have some special and unique ones.”
“You were level 10 a while back, right?”
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“Yeah, if you regress a level you lose your class, I had the King of the Forest class, it was sad to see it go.” He said, clearly reminiscing.
“King of the Forest sounds metal, what did it do?”
“Metal? What does that have to do with anything.”
“Y’know… Metal means amazing, at least it does in my world.”
“Yeah, it was metal indeed. I could see the location of any animal if I found its tracks, it came with a magical quiver that generated bows out of thin air, with metal arrowheads. And I had a boar companion, oh it was magnificent.”
“Wow.” I said simply.
“Indeed.”
“And the stat bonuses weren’t too negligible as well.” He said, grinning.
“I wonder what I’ll be getting when I turn level 10.”
“Hopefully its a unique class like King of the Forest, it gives you an incredible edge over all the basic classes.”
“I’m not exactly sure what I’ve done or what I have in my stat sheet that makes me all that special.”
“You’ve murdered another man.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah, that gives you a unique class, I had it as an option. It definitely was better than the basic classes they give you, but I opted for King of the Forest, how couldn’t I, the benefits were so good!”
“When did I do that?” I’ve killed goblins, gnolls, kobolds, scarecrows and bullywugs, but never a human, maybe Jeremy was seeing things.
“You don’t remember? It was how I got this bow.” He showed it to me.
“I looted that off a bullywug.”
“No, that was off a person.”
“It was night, you couldn’t see anything there anyway.” I said, I don’t know why he thought I killed someone, when all that was there in the forest were bullywugs and scarecrows.
“You’ll see when you get your class selections.”
“Whatever, I guess.” I said.
We arrived at the familiar entrance of the cave, I took some time to rest before going in as I had been jogging the whole way, but it didn’t take long before I felt fully rejuvenated.
“Alright, remember, don’t kill anything until I get my swordsmanship skill up.”
He nodded and followed closely behind me as I made my way through the familiar cave, I saw the first Gnoll and with one cleave across the body, the gnoll was bisected, it did take a lot of effort to drive my sword through a gnoll or kobold’s body but if I was trying hard enough I could get it every time.
It wasn’t long before I got my skill, and my balance was massively improved, I could swing the blade faster as my technique improved, and I could put more power behind the swings due to my stance improving and my mind stat taking it’s effect, I could easily bisect whatever stood in front of me.
All that was left to do was to break through the wall of purple shards, which didn’t even have any shards on it - they took a really long time to recover - and kill the kobold with my new strength and weapon.
“Alright, lets go.” Jeremy said, nocking one of the stone-hafted arrows along the side of his bow and pulling back as I approached the wall.
I slammed my boot forward into the wall, this was a kick strong enough to make any battering ram envious of how easily I could break down barriers.
A boulder was launched towards my face and I dived to the left, the fight had started, and I wasn’t gonna get juggled this time, I was gonna reclaim my honor and beat this thing a little less pitifully.