บท 10: Dungeon run
After leaving the hub, he started to prepare himself for running the first floor again. Having learned from his first try, he first picked up his backpack and emptied it. He then checked the kitchen for some easy to consume but energy-rich food. Of course, there was nothing. The ready-made meals were unsuitable for his goal.
What he had hoped for were some energy bars and such, one of his apartment-mates had bought and then forgotten about.
He thought about going to the supermarket and after taking a look at their bottle selection in the kitchen, he decided to do just that. Although he didn't have much money for daily necessities, there was enough reserve in his wallet for him to buy a few packs of energy bars and a few bottles of water. Later he would then be able to refill these bottles with tap water, which was much cheaper.
After his short trip to the supermarket, it was time for him to once again enter the first floor of the dungeon.
Once again he found himself in the dark cave, which was the start of the first floor. Carefully searching the room left him disappointed. This time, there was nothing to be found and he could only make his way carefully towards the next room.
The setup was the same as the first time. A small green goblin was sitting on the floor with its back towards him.
Wanting to repeat the strategy from the last time, he once again crept forward along the path he had calculated beforehand.
But this time, something went wrong. His foot hit a loose pebble when he was still some distance away from the goblin.
A more experienced assassin or fighter might have been able to react instantly to this change of situation. But Ivan was no experienced fighter. And his experience resulted in him not reacting to the change of the situation as fast as it was required.
The goblin had heard the sound of the pebble being moved by his foot and it reacted instantly based on its instincts.
Not only did it turn around towards the source of the sound, but it also got ready to attack. Meanwhile, Ivan was still in his crouched position, which he had used in an effort to reduce the danger of being detected. Something that had evidently not worked.
While his brain still hadn't caught up, the goblin had already jumped towards him, trying to swipe towards his face with its claws. Luckily this action was capable of shaking Ivan out of his state of shock. More on instinct than on a well thought, he lifted his hand, with the knife in it, in an attempt to block the strike.
When the claws of the goblin and the blade of his knife met, the knife sliced cleanly through the claws.
"Urgh.", Ivan grunted as he felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder. But not daring to hesitate and check what had injured him, he directly used his knife to stab towards the goblins face, getting his revenge with this savage stab.
The goblin lifted his claws in an attempt of blocking the stab, not having realized yet that a significant part of the claws had been sliced off.
Predictable the same thing as before happened again. As if cutting through butter, the knife slit through the blocking claws and stabbed viciously into the head of the goblin. If not for the nature of the dungeon, a large stream of blood would have splattered onto Ivan's face. But because this was the dungeon, the goblin only shattered into light particles.
Ivan stared at the knife and the vanishing light particles in surprise. Never would he have expected that this stab would be able to kill the goblin this cleanly. Never would he have expected that the knife was this sharp. His view of the knife changed. He looked at it with reverence, happy to have such a tool at his disposal.
Sharp pain brought him out of his reverie and reminded him of what had happened at the start of the pain. He still didn't know what had injured him back then. A close look revealed four holes in his clothing as well as flesh.
It didn't take much thinking to realize that these wounds were from the claws of the goblin. Thinking back to how the knife had sliced through the claws when he had stabbed the gobline in the face, he could imagine what had happened when he had blocked the claws at first.
The knife must have sliced through the claws, which had retained their momentum and had hit his shoulder. Luckily they didn't have enough power behind them, to really injure him. If they had still been attached to the goblin when they hit his shoulder, they might just have mangled it completely, instead of leaving only small holes.
Looking at the holes, which didn't even bleed, he thanked the Nanite-Suite, which was responsible for this fact. Losing blood would mean losing strength, so the blood stopping effect of the suite was extremely valuable for injuries like this.
Ivan carefully tried to move his shoulder in an attempt to check out how bad this injury influenced his combat ability.
"Fuu", he couldn't help but exhale a deep breath. Although the wound didn't seem to hinder his movements, it fucking hurt.
Thinking about what he had brought into the dungeon he couldn't help but curse. "Why the hell didn't I think of getting some pain killers?"
He could only put the fault on the fact that he hadn't been hurt badly during his last try.
Clenching his teeth he wondered why the suite didn't block the pain when it was clearly capable of doing so. The moment he asked himself the question, the answer appeared from the knowledge he had gotten before.
"The Nanite-Suit will not block any pain below a certain threshold, since this would impair judgment on the seriousness of an injury and can lead to a significant worsening of an injury."
"Fine.", he grunted and checked out the loot the goblin had dropped, which was nothing. "Fuu.. all this for nothing.", he grumbled but he wasn't surprised.
The first run of a dungeon floor would drastically increase the drop rate, while each successive run would slowly decrease it until it reached a minimum. While it would be rare to not get any drop from a monster during the first run, the opposite would be true for the following runs. There the norm was to not get a drop and only if lucky there would be a drop. And even then, most of the drops would only be EC and not useful and more valuable items.
While trying to ignore the pain in his shoulder, Ivan made his way towards the next room.
Knowing how capable his knife was, he was able to finish this fight much faster than the last time. He made full use of its sharpness to dismember the attacking gobline with his blocks. Just by blocking an attack from the stupid goblin, he could remove a part of its attacking body part. After he had sliced off its arms this way, he could then easily dispatch the goblin, by once again stabbing his knife into its head.
The hardest part might have just been to block in such a way, that the body parts, which he cut off didn't land on him.
After that, his streak continued. The two goblins, which had their back towards him, were easily dispatched by just a swing of his knife, clearly gliding through both their necks, killing them without them even be able to react.
Now only the last goblin, which carried a short iron rod was left.
Although this goblin had been problematic the last time, this time was very different. With his new strategy, it was easy to kill, without getting even the slightest wound.
Although calling it a strategy could be seen as an overstatement. Basically, he was just making use of his superior weapon, cutting the iron rod into pieces and then easily dispatching the now weaponless goblin.
If anything, it was a demonstration of how important a good weapon is and how much of a difference it could make.
This time the boss also dropped something he welcomed very much. It was a piece of goblin leather. Now together with the iron rod from last time, he should be able to craft another knife. Then he would be equipped well enough to try to attempt the next floor.
According to the internet, the next floor wasn't much harder, as long as one was able to speedily dispatch the goblins. And if his last run had shown anything, then that his knives were able to make short work of the goblins.
After once again finding nothing else in the room, he left the dungeon. Unlike the first time, there were no special rewards for finishing the dungeon. Only a simple information screen popped up.
[[ For finishing 'Tower of Challenge' Level 1 'Goblin Cave', you will be rewarded:
- 5 EC
]]
With this, his second dungeon run had ended, and he found himself back at his room.
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