Blacksmith vs. the System 86-90

— Chapter 86

“What do you see?” Eleanor whispered two minutes later, as we stood a distance away from them. Finding them hadn’t been too difficult, as they retreated back to the canyon they previously wanted to use as an ambush spot.

“As far as I can tell, all of them are here, and they look tense,” I said. “My best guess is, they are afraid of another attack.”

“Good. They should be,” she added even as her sword — well, technically my sword, but the more I watched her, the more I was convinced that it wouldn’t matter — flashed, and another monster died without making a sound.

Her ability to kill the monsters silently was one reason we had managed to stay concealed despite our relative closeness. Two hundred yards wasn’t close, but it wasn’t that distant either. Luckily, without their scouts, it was much harder for them to hear anything.

Also, it helped that most of the monsters in the immediate vicinity had already been killed during either the earlier swarms or their return, and the few that remained fell to her attacks easily, her vitality attacks cutting the monsters’ shells like butter.

“I would have said that we should return to the first floor and get some reinforcements, but I don’t like their attitude,” I said.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“They are tense, but not really fearful. It feels like they are waiting for something.”

“Maybe reinforcements?” she asked.

“Maybe,” I said, then paused, thinking for a moment. “Actually, it might be risky, but I have an idea,” I said. She looked at me questioningly. “I need you to attack them, but retreat just as quickly.”

She smirked. I was glad that I was not the target of that smirk. “Well, I was looking for an excuse to test my sword properly,” she said.

Her unilateral declaration would have been annoying if the sword was actually a rare commodity, but considering I merely require half a day to forge another, it turned into something endearing. “Unfortunately, no,” I said to her. “You need to use your old sword.”

“Why?” she complained, her tone uncharacteristically childish. Luckily, she had the presence of mind to not shout.

“Because we don’t want to give out precious information during a probing attack,” I explained. Despite not having the strategic awareness of a general, even I could recognize the fact that, with the System in play, every battle was like a puzzle game. A tense, deadly puzzle game where both parties held certain cards, and a surprise could be the difference between a win and a loss.

“Fine,” Eleanor responded. “I’m going to attack first, then retreat, right?” she asked.

“Yes, just wait for my signal,” I said.

“Which is what?” she asked.

“I’ll attack them by throwing spears from the other side,” I said. “Once you hear the cries of pain, attack unless I shout for you to stop, but be careful not to be surrounded,” I said. “We need to make it look like a botched assault. And, I’ll smash a rock with my hammer when it’s time to retreat, which should still trigger a swarm. That way, you can retreat easily.”

“Is it really necessary?” she asked.

“Humor me,” I responded. “It’s suspicious that they are staying in place rather than trying to escape. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe they are over-confident. They might believe that, as long as they are in a group, we can’t defeat them without reinforcements. Not that we will have any worthwhile support. Maria is not in town today, and none of the guards would be of use.”

“Assuming some of them weren’t bribed by them in the first place,” I commented, and Eleanor nodded. “They would probably have agents at the dungeon entrance, ready to warn them if that was the case,” I theorized.

“That’s probably why they are overconfident, and think that they can survive. We have the advantage, we should press on,” she said, and then her smile turned vicious. “With my new sword, I could carve through their armor easily, so their tactic wouldn’t work.”

“Still, if there’s one thing I learned from chess or other games, it is that assuming the enemy is making a mistake without checking can backfire badly. And, since they already expect an ambush, we’re not really losing a big opportunity,” I said.

I was glad that I had taken the opportunity to destroy the ballistas, or such a probing attack would have been impossible.

Too bad they had already collected the wrecked ballista. Currently, they were at the side of the canyon, discarded like garbage. Their enchantments were still in place, and I could repair them just as easily as I destroyed them.

I should have dragged one of them away when I had the chance. A pity. Just as I was about to move, my instincts, which had been used intensively during my days as a professor, had tingled in warning. “Try to be on the side of caution. It’s just a probing attack. No making excuses to test your new sword,” I warned her.

“I wouldn’t do that,” she hissed, but I was sure that I didn’t imagine the guilty look on her face.

“Then, we have no problem, and I don’t need to threaten you with not forging you a matching dagger,” I smirked back, enjoying her affronted expression. Now that we were on a more equal footing, she was surprisingly easy to tease.

I carefully circled the group before I once again pulled my atlatl, and released three short spears in quick succession. I aimed all three to their heads, as just because it was a probing attack didn’t mean I was against thinning their numbers a bit.

Unfortunately, ranged attacks were much harder to land without a battle to distract them. The first spear was the closest it came to hitting the target, but even then, the guard was able to deflect it with a shield. The other two missed completely.

Meanwhile, from the other side, Eleanor charged silently and engaged with four guards. I expected the rest to respond immediately. Instead, the guards retreated back like they were overwhelmed. It was an obvious bait.

My attention was grabbed by Thomas’ bodyguard, who, rather than joining the fight, had moved away from Eleanor before he pulled some kind of device and activated it. The resulting mana flare reminded me of the other attempts to communicate through dungeon floors, turning into a straight blue line before it stretched away … only significantly more intense.

Following that, he went forward, and called for Eleanor. “It’s fun to see a familiar face,” he called loudly as he removed his helmet. Too bad he was too deep into his camp for me to hit him with a spear.

“Georg,” Eleanor called even as she stopped fighting and took a few steps back. “I should have known it was you from the smell.”

“Well that's uncalled for, Eleanor,” he said. “Just because we are working for different bosses doesn’t mean we need to be rude to each other. It’s just business.” Eleanor snarled mockingly. “We’re not here to hurt you, but to kill an enemy of my master. We were just trying to keep you distracted.”

As they spoke, I circled the group once again, standing behind Eleanor in a position where she could see me, but the others could not, and gestured for her to continue talking, hoping that they would reveal something.

“You were just trying to kill my ally. Oh, that makes things so much better,” Eleanor snarled in annoyance. “I should be thankful to your snotty master, then?”

For the first time, Georg looked angry. No, he was furious. A religious zealot fighting with another one style furious. He clearly took the insult to Thomas personally.

It didn’t surprise me too much. I already had enough evidence to conclude that Charisma had an insidious effect. And, Georg had probably spent the majority of his time glued to Thomas, constantly under his Charisma. Add in the fact that he followed his orders daily, which was a good way to foster loyalty and dependence even without mixing in a supernatural pseudo-drug like Charisma.

I had a feeling that it would be useful. However, while he might have been zealous enough to defend his master's honor, that didn't mean he was foolish enough to rush forward recklessly.

“If you insist on intervening, I’ll treat you as an enemy as well,” Georg said in a chippy tone, acting like Eleanor wasn’t the target for assassination in the first place. It wasn’t convincing, but he was too angry to act in a convincing manner.

“Like you weren’t going to before,” Eleanor scoffed as she rushed forward to attack again, going further into the formation than I had requested. I signaled her, but she ignored it, moving deeper into the formation, where the enemy could surround her if they wished. I tightened the grip on my hammer, ready to rush forward if needed…

But, to my surprise, they only defended even as Eleanor pushed her luck. The reinforcements they had called must have been even stronger than I feared for them to miss such a golden opportunity.

Facing an unbreakable defensive line, Eleanor pulled back less than a minute later, and returned to my side. Together, we retreated enough not to fear them eavesdropping. “Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked.

“I might have found even more,” I responded. “They called for reinforcements, and I feel that it’s not good news.”

“What do we do? Retreat?” she said, her distaste clear.

While that was a tempting idea, there was one problem. My guild was still there. They hadn't targeted it yet, probably because it was just a bunch of farmers, which made them a low-value target, not worth risking the ambush. But, if we tried to retreat … they had already shown that they had no problem killing hundreds of unrelated people just to inconvenience Maria.

“No,” I said, my voice sharp enough to surprise myself. “They still don’t know I can see through the mist. We go and intercept their reinforcements.”

“That’s more like it,” Eleanor smiled viciously. Any other time, it would have been worrying. This time, it was the opposite.

I could acutely feel that I was changing, a scary concept in and of itself.

*****

— Chapter 87

While deciding that ambushing the arrival would be a good strategic concept, it wasn’t that simple tactically, mainly due to two factors.

We had no idea about the nature of the reinforcements. More importantly, if we left them alone for too long, they would inevitably alert the reinforcements, who would be ready for an attack.

“So, what do we do,” Eleanor asked. “Do we just go and camp at the nearest dungeon gate, hoping to catch the reinforcements?”

“No, I don’t believe that’s the most efficient plan,” I said, but didn’t immediately declare it a bad plan. Until very recently, she had been my superior, and while she currently saw me as an equal, a little delicacy wouldn’t hurt. No one liked an upstart with a lot of new ideas.

It was a lesson I had learned when I first joined the faculty.

Luckily, while she frowned at my declaration, it wasn’t the deep, affronted expression that I feared. I didn’t know if she respected my acumen more than I had realized, or if it was still the good mood from her new sword. The former would have made me happier, but I would still take the latter as well.

“That's not exactly an efficient plan. They might just use another gate to arrive here, and we would be screwed. And, we need to stay near to harass them. I don’t want them to get the idea of targeting my guild to draw us to a fight.”

“What do we do, then?” she asked.

I bit my lip as I thought, then my gaze flipped to the ruined ballistas. “We’re going to use their original tactic, and destroy them with the ballistas,” I said.

“How? We can probably take them, but they would realize that there’s something suspicious.”

“Not if we bury them,” I responded. “Since they seem determined to attack

“Can’t we just kill them?” Eleanor asked. “This new sword is incredible, and I’m guessing you’re not too shabby with that hammer, or you couldn’t have soloed dungeon bosses no matter the trickeries you used.”

“True. I’m sure we can take them, but I doubt we could catch all of them if they decided to escape. And, more importantly, it would mean their reinforcements would stay hidden, looking for an opportunity. Wouldn’t it be better to get rid of them all at once?”

Eleanor paused, thinking carefully. “Alright, professor. You have one chance to put your plan into action before we go with mine.”

I smiled, doing my best to ignore that we were planning how to massacre about forty people, plus an uncertain number of reinforcements. That ignorance came easier than I was happy with, but once again, the immediacy of the situation forced me to ignore my own warping psyche and focus on practical matters.

Like, how to conceal my action of hiding my assault. The first step was to lure them into a false sense of security. Luckily, with the reinforcements on the way, they were also trying to kill time, giving us enough time to prepare.

During the first assault, Eleanor attacked from the front alone, still using her old sword to limit her threat level, while I supported her with several ranged spears. When Eleanor pulled back, she was already frowning. “I hope you’re confident in your plan. I’m not used to failure,” she warned me.

“Don’t worry. It’s clear that they want to kill time, and it gives us an opportunity,” I said.

“If you say so,” she said even as I accompanied her for another rush. “Huh, are you still using your sword?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said even as I joined the assault, charging the mess from the opposite direction, expecting to fight in a combined manner. It worked well. I wasn’t as good as Eleanor, but a maxed-out Rare skill, particularly one that worked well with my Strength build, was enough to keep the five guards that attacked me busy.

Then, I noticed that one of the guards engaging with Eleanor was struggling. I pulled a spear from my back and threw it with a smooth motion before the others could realize it.

I wasn’t able to infuse it with mana in the middle of combat, but it didn’t need to. The guard who was trying to engage with Eleanor did his best to dodge the spear that he noticed at the last second. Unfortunately for him, Eleanor was too experienced to let such a mistake go unpunished. Two attacks were all she needed to destroy his guard completely before decapitating him with the third attack.

Georg seemed to be uncaring of the loss, but the same wasn’t true for the guild leaders. “Screw your plan,” one of them growled as he rushed toward me, and five from the inner line joined him, all moving toward me.

“Idiots,” Georg growled even as he quickly barked a few orders. The majority of the reserves attacked me, while Georg rushed toward Eleanor.

I stomped my foot to the ground twice, as Eleanor was too far away to see me, signaling her to continue with the plan. “Finally, little cowards joining the battle,” I said, louder than necessary even as I took a step to the side, positioning myself at the edge of the hill.

“You have pushed your luck, Arthur,” yelled the enemy guild leader, who I remembered talking to once or twice — though only if veiled insults and threats delivered by him while I gave one-word responses counted as talking.

“Oh, brave man,” I responded, forcing a joviality to my tone. “And, it took only the support of a dozen warriors to face me,” I said. Actually, an equal number of warriors were also trying to circle around me to pin me in place, but I acted unaware of that.

After all, they were supposed to be concealed by the mist.

He just growled in anger and attacked. Unfortunately for him, the skill mismatch was enough to keep their blades from ever touching me, and even if it wasn’t my current armor was strong enough to take any blow that might slip.

None of the blows actually slipped, but it was the difference between trying to do rock climbing with a safety tether on, and without it. The former was much easier. I pushed forward ‘recklessly’ which positioned me between the two parties.

And, coincidentally, near the broken ballistas.

“Oh, big brave guild master can’t defeat poor old me with just a dozen soldiers, and require more,” I shouted as the second group joined the mess. “Too bad,” I called even as I took a step back and switched to my hammer, ready to devastate the hill we were fighting on.

[-100 Health]

As I slammed my hammer on the ground, six different attacks hit me, but all bounced off helplessly. I didn’t even feel them enough to actually require Health to cure me, but I still made a show of grunting in pain.

Quake hammer destabilized the edge of the hill we were fighting on, which created a landslide that had three consequences, two of them intentional. The first two consequences were bringing me away from the ambush as I used Fleeting Step to surf over the wave of rubble, and burying the ballistas as intended.

The third one, however, had been a welcome surprise. The guild leader and five attackers, who were responsible for the ineffective attacks against my armor, had tumbled down with me. And, unlike me, they lacked the skill to help them keep their footing on such unstable ground.

Before the landslide calmed down, my blade flashed several times, making sure they could never stand up. Not exactly an honorable victory, but considering how things had developed, I wasn’t exactly burning with a desire to give them a fair fighting chance.

When the dust settled, I found the others looking at me from the fresh edge of the hill, looking horrified. I didn’t blame them. One against twenty was supposed to be the odds for a decisive victory, especially once I recklessly pushed in between them.

The loss of six of their members, including one of the guild masters, when the best they could do was to scratch my armor was not that.

Though, while thinking that, I glanced down, only to see my armor completely pristine, without even a scratch, making me realize that they weren’t even able to achieve a scratch.

Fascinating and scary in equal measures.

I pulled back, and Eleanor managed to ditch Georg with relative ease as she had the advantage in mobility. Though, watching them fight, I had seen that Georg wasn’t any weaker than Eleanor, likely possessing a well-developed Epic skill, so I made a note not to confront him directly.

With everything in place, stealing the ballistas under the rubble went without a hitch. Eleanor continued attacking, while I split my attention between supporting her from range and using one of the most famous siege strategies in the ancient world.

I dug a tunnel.

Thanks to a combination of mana and Strength, digging that tunnel barely took me a minute, and the constant sound of battle kept that activity concealed.

Soon, we were looking at six ballistas, pristine after a few touches, hidden behind a rock. A quick supply run to the safe house meant that we had the ballista bolts back, not to mention a fresh batch of throwing spears.

“Not bad, professor,” Eleanor said before as she started giving me a crash course on how to use them, which seemed simple enough with enchantments handling most of the work. “All we need to do now is wait for the reinforcements to arrive. Speaking of them, why do you think they have them?” she asked. “Wouldn’t it be better if they had been a part of the ambush in the first place?”

“Not necessarily,” I responded. “Don’t forget. While setting the ambush, Thomas suspected that I might be over level hundred, which meant I was harder to target. With the visibility in the dungeon, they weren’t sure to take both of us down. That way, once I retreated away from the dungeon, they could ambush me outside. Which means, we’re going to have a difficult fight even with the ballistas.”

Her smile was positively vicious even as she grabbed the hilt of her new sword. “It’s good that I’m properly armed, right?”

I was glad she was on my side.

*****

— Chapter 88

Just because we were waiting for reinforcements didn’t mean we stopped attacking once the ballistas were ready and in place. On the contrary, we continued attacking even more, forcing them to defend themselves.

Their attitude changed from baiting us to defending earnestly, the recent loss of another guild master forcing their hands. They simply didn’t have an option. Currently, the only one that could fight against us on an equal footing was Georg, meaning, whenever we attacked from two opposite directions, he had been forced to engage with Eleanor, while the remaining guild masters tried to defend against me.

With them focusing fully on the defensive and us holding back our trump cards, the battle had been locked into a stalemate. We attacked in bursts, allowing us to replenish the Health we consumed during our special attacks.

And, whenever we retreated, Georg sent another magical message to his allies. The intensity of the mana flare from those messages didn’t match the first one, leading me to believe that the reinforcements were already in the dungeon. So, whenever we pulled back, I made sure to circle around the two positions to see if I could catch the reinforcements.

Which I finally came across them nearly ten minutes later, but their size surprised me.

More than a hundred people.

Admittedly, the numbers alone weren’t that scary. The performance they put against the monster attacks showed that they weren’t particularly strong. They were probably the rest of the guild members, the ones too weak to contribute anything other than a momentary distraction.

However, the same didn’t apply to the eight that were at the center of the formation, each wearing pure black armor. They felt …

Dangerous.

Clearly, I wasn’t the only one who felt this way, as none of the guild fighters walked near them. Whatever that was going on with them, it was not good news. They radiated some kind of primal fear. I would have almost suspected that they had Charisma, but it was not the same.

When Thomas used that, I could feel some kind of external pressure wrapping around me and pulling my fear to the surface … Here, it was a primal sensation, like I just came across a rabid dog, foams covering its mouth.

I gulped even as I retreated, suddenly glad that we had gone through all that trouble to steal and repair the ballistas. When I returned, Eleanor was just finishing eating another nutrition bar. “You’re early,” she said.

“They are here, just half a mile away, and getting closer,” I said.

“Finally,” she said with a sharp smirk. “What’s the layout?”

“About a hundred guild fighters, low-leveled, and eight … I don’t know who they are, but they felt … wrong.” I didn’t like the way I sounded plaintive, but I had no choice. I was basically trying to warn her against something that I didn’t even know myself.

“Wrong, how?” she asked, her expression serious.

“I don’t know how to describe it. It’s more of an ephemeral feeling. But, it’s intense enough that I want to target four of the six ballistas to them.”

“Even if it means we can’t catch all of them at once and most of them escape? You were the one afraid of it. Once they start to retreat, we won’t have the chance to reload them.”

“Yes, even then,” I said. I wasn’t exactly someone big on instincts, but what I was feeling from them was too intense to be ignored. “Now, let’s conduct one last attack. We can’t afford to alert them when we’re so close to victory.”

She stayed silent for a while, then nodded, approving the last-minute adjustment to the plan. It was good news.

“Stay with the ballistas and support me from range,” she said as she tensed. “I’ll switch to the sword the moment you release the first attack.”

“I’ll target the newcomers first. Just retreat when I launch the first one. It won’t take long to release every single one of them.”

“And, once two of them land, I’ll switch to … your gift to me,” she said, smiling surprisingly.

“Yes. I knew the moment I gave it to you I won’t be receiving it back,” I said, trying to sound exasperated rather than glad. I could see that she was trying to calm me down about what I had felt from them.

Eleanor rushed forward, and I started supporting her with spears I released through my atlatl, keeping an eye on the attackers. Attackers gathered on my flank, ready to spread to envelop me. They seemed ready to take me down.

Before they could even start their assault, I aimed the four ballistas toward the center of their formation, where the eight scary ones were still gathered reasonably close, and released the four bolts at the same time.

The difference between using the bolts on the ballistas and releasing them directly was like the difference between night and day. The moment I triggered, the complicated enchantment on the ballista flared to life, linking with the one on the bolt.

The bolt radiated mana as it flew toward its target, slower than I expected, which was a scary proposition as it had been accompanied by a loud buzzing noise. Combined, I could have dodged it if it was used against me, and so would Eleanor as long as she wasn’t occupied.

No wonder they had set an elaborate trap to draw her out.

However, those thoughts were only on the passing. I was more interested in the way each bolt skewered its target before exploding into fragments, accompanied by a wave of mana, which started burning black.

Scary effect. Eleanor hadn’t mentioned that detail.

It was an unexpected effect, but I didn’t have time to waste on it. Eleanor had already retreated from her engagement, so I released the last two ballistas. This time, I aimed it at the hill, destroying their formation and footing before killing some of them.

Georg might not be as fast as Eleanor, but I still didn’t want to risk targeting him with the siege weapon, and the rest wasn’t exactly a priority target.

The moment I released the last two, I rushed forward. Reloading them was not an option since the enchantment required time to recover. So, I stopped with the ranged attacks, grabbed my hammer, and rushed forward.

I took several steps before the bolts had reached their target, exploding in a dangerous cloud of dust and … no flame. Certainly no black flame. I couldn’t help but glance to my right, where the black flames were still burning strong.

But, at this moment, Eleanor had already jumped to the cloud of dust, and required my support … or at least, that was what I assumed before the cries of pain reached my ear. The sword, combined with the limited visibility worked to her benefit if the number of interrupted cries was any indicator.

However, before I could think a lot about it, Georg burst from the cloud, wanting to escape. “I got him,” I shouted at Eleanor even as I closed in the distance, Floating Step making me even faster.

“You think you can defeat me,” Georg growled as he turned to catch me. “I have seen the way you fought. You’re clearly not as good —” he started, only to realize I was not wielding a sword, but a hammer.

A hammer that glowed with an intense blue hue. “Impossible,” he shouted even as he raised his sword to parry.

I had to admit, it was a perfect parry. Sharp, strong, and angled perfectly to keep his weapon safe from any attack. I was sure that, even if I used the strongest hammer attack given by my Rare skill, it wouldn’t have worked.

Unfortunately for him, that mana glow wasn’t from Quake Hammer, but the enhanced, denser mana from the Epic Mana Forge, designed to purge the mana out of his sword.

[-10 Mana]

It wasn’t a perfect method. Even the weakest external mana flow would have destabilized it. Luckily for us, the dungeon lacked such a fluctuation, allowing the mana to stick to his blade longer without my control.

“You think that being an Essence Warrior would save you,” he growled. “Once those monsters arrive, you won’t survive,” he declared arrogantly. But, even as he declared that a cry reached my ears. A loud, bloodcurdling cry, one that I hadn’t heard since the first days of the Cataclysm, when the concept of monsters was new.

The moment that cry reached my ear, I expected Georg to look arrogant and confident. Instead, he looked afraid, and hesitant. “No, don’t tell me you attacked them with ballistas,” he asked, with fear coloring his face. He took a step to escape.

Anyone else, I might have considered letting them go, wondering whether their intention was genuine, or they were acting. But he was the main person responsible for our plight, and even if his desire was genuine, it was too late.

I swung down my hammer, this time delivering a quake attack.

 [-50 Health]

[-25 Mana]

He tried to parry again, but his weapon, already degraded by my earlier trick, was unable to handle the blow. His helmet managed to resist, but the quake aspects of it bypassed his armor sufficiently, enough to make him bleed through his eyes and ears, stunned.

I delivered another blow, finishing him off, for once happy with my own distorted perspective, allowing me to kill without hesitation.

I turned to support Eleanor, only to freeze. The initial dust cloud had settled enough for me to see her … and only her. Of the thirty-five remaining warriors, none of them were alive.

It would have been enough to celebrate, if it wasn’t for the cries that were reaching our ears. “What’s going on?” I asked even as I rushed to her side.

“I don’t know,” she said. “All I see is some kind of black flame that makes me very unsettled.”

“Wait, you can see it as well? But, it’s almost a hundred yards away,” I asked.

She nodded grimly.

I paused, looking past the black flame, focusing on the edge of the mist … which had become jagged as if it was being siphoned.

Eerily similar to how it was around the boss monster.

*****

— Chapter 89

“Good news is that we know why they wanted to ambush you outside,” Eleanor said even as another pained cry reached our ears, only to be cut halfway. I wanted to admonish her, but the uncharacteristic tenseness in her tone stopped me. It was clear that she was trying to handle the shock in her own way.

Instead, I watched, trying to understand what was going on. The black flames were calming down, but the speed at the mist was gathering — which was something I had only seen on the boss monsters — had only hastened, increasing the visibility around us.

All except the black flames, which were letting out an equally black, suffocating smog, making me glad that my helmet had an integrated filter. Eleanor was already coughing.

I grabbed one of the spears I had yet to throw, and a flash of mana melted the iron, which I then used to fashion a breather filter, which would hopefully be enough to handle what was going on.

Even as I created that, I watched through the smog. We weren’t able to see much, just several shadows, most trying to escape ineffectively, while the other shadows followed.

 “What do we do?”

“I … we need to kill them,” she said. “I have never heard of people being able to absorb dungeon mist, but it can’t be good news. And, we need to do that now,” she said as she took a step forward.

I grabbed her shoulder. “No,” I said.

She looked at me, disappointed. “You can go if you want. We need to warn the fort, after all,” she said, doing her best to hide her disgust. She wasn’t very successful.

I appreciated the effort. “I’m not saying to retreat, but we can’t just rush forward blindly,” I said even as I started dragging her toward the ballistas. Her expression was alighted with understanding. “How long would it take for the ballistas to recover?” I asked.

“In a mana-dead dungeon? A lot,” she said.

“What if we can supply it with more mana?” I asked.

“A minute, maybe two?” she responded.

“Good, keep the ballistas safe. I’ll be back in a moment,” I said as I turned, ready to use the Fleeting Step, hoping that I would be fast enough to go to the nearest safe house and return just as fast. I was already doing my best…

“A-am I,” I found myself suddenly asking. The modified Fleeting Step was fast, but it wasn’t the fastest thing in my arsenal. No, the fastest Perk available to me was the Floating Stride. One that I couldn’t use due to my fears. And, now, Eleanor might die because of it.

“Come on, Devon. For once in your life, ignore your stupid fear,” I growled, pushing myself. My hands trembled, and my legs lost their strength, but I bit my lips, the taste of my own blood filling my mouth. “Come on,” I growled again.

And jumped.

The sensation of flying was as disgusting as I remembered. My whole body was locked in place, and I had been hit by a sensation of falling that played a part in some of my worst nightmares.

The desire to save Eleanor didn’t suddenly cure me of my phobia. The sensation of flying was just as hateable and disgusting as I remembered, and not having anything underneath me made it ten times worse. Luckily, Floating Stride didn’t require any input from me until I landed.

Well, landed was a generous description of what had happened. Crashed was a better descriptor, but my armor was there to take the worst of the damage, and my Dexterity meant I was able to roll to my feet with fascinating alacrity.

I jumped again. Then, I crashed again. And again… It was ridiculous, horrifying, and humiliating at the same time, but where a second might be the difference between Eleanor’s death and survival, none of it mattered.

When I reached the safe house, I picked a huge pile of shells I had placed there for safety and a manual crusher. When I had been putting them there, I was certain that I was being excessive and paranoid. Now, I was furious that I hadn’t littered the whole floor with them, maybe even with steam-powered variants.

Unfortunately, as usual, hindsight was the greatest strategic planner.

The return trip was more of the same, which meant I arrived at Eleanor's side with an undignified tumble. It would have been a horrible shock if it wasn’t for one important detail.

Eleanor was surrounded by four men … no, monsters would have been a better descriptor. They were roughly man-shaped, but their skin looked like melted messes, and the way they fought was no different than beasts.

Very strong beasts, faster and stronger than Eleanor. Her armor was already half-ripped, with her recovery working overtime to cure her wounds. Her only advantage was the lack of coordination they had been showing. They were faster and stronger, but one thing they lacked was smooth control.

 Suddenly, I was very glad that I had pushed myself, as she was already at her limit.

“Tag,” I shouted even as I jumped to the mix, my hammer already dancing.

“No, they are too strong —” she shouted in panic, ready to help me when one of their attacks threw me away, but barely managed to dent my armor.

[-14 Health]

“My armor can hold them back, don’t worry,” I said. “Just fill the container with the shells, point the mouth to the ballista, and rotate the crank —” I explained, my words interrupted by another hit that threw me away.

They were strong enough to throw me around like a rag doll.

“Be careful, they are getting stronger,” she warned even as she followed my command, which was something I was glad for.

“Noted,” I said as I switched my weapon, donning my spear. The fact that Eleanor couldn’t put them down even with her new sword meant that they were able to recover from a horrifying amount of damage. My hammer might have been capable of delivering that, but on a straight line, they were too fast.

Breeze Spear focused on mobility. As I shifted to it, I was able to dodge their attacks far more effectively. Not enough to avoid every attack, but maybe reduce their hits by sixty percent. For the rest, I relied on my armor, being thrown around like a toy.

However, as I fought with them, I understood why Georg had been very reluctant to bring them into the dungeon. Whatever their ailment was, it was getting stronger the more dungeon mist they consumed. A part of that transformation was them getting faster and stronger in real-time.

Luckily, that growth was accompanied by an even greater loss of control, which meant that, as time passed, it got easier to avoid their attacks. I started paying attention to the damage my weapons had been causing, expecting it to recover faster and faster.

To my surprise, the opposite was true. As for what was responsible, a hypothesis drifted to the top of my mind the moment I sensed a familiar aura around them, one that reminded me intensely of the fourth floor.

The mist was transforming them into something closer to the monsters of the dungeon, along with giving them the same weaknesses.

I wondered if I let the transformation go long enough, could I kill them alone. But, that curiosity wasn’t strong enough to countermand when Eleanor warned me to pull back. I retreated, and the twang of the ballista followed.

A direct hit, reducing their number to three.

“Good work,” I called even as I attacked them with mana, distracting them from ballistas. I did my best not to be distracted by the body, which started burning with the same black flames. I couldn’t afford the distraction.

As I engaged with them once again, I was able to notice another, fortunate familiarity they had with a rabid beast. Their intelligence wasn’t too far away. The pain from my spear suitably distracted the remaining three.

More importantly, dealing with the three of them was markedly easier than resisting four. The number of blows I was receiving had dropped significantly, then turned into nothingness when Eleanor shouted again.

I pulled back. Another twang of a ballista, and their number dropped to two. Then, yet another, and one remained.

To my surprise, once he was alone, he turned to escape. “Keep him back,” Eleanor shouted. “We can’t let him go free.”

“Open the container!” I shouted even as I chased him — or was it a better descriptor at this point?

Eleanor seemed surprised by my shout, but luckily, her shock didn’t prevent her from following that direction, as we lacked the time necessary for me to explain why. The transformed monster in front of us was too fast on a straight line for us to catch up.

And, I didn’t want to imagine what might happen once it got loose in the dungeon.

The container parted open, and concentrated tainted energy radiated from the box. Just like the dungeon monsters, the transformed man seemed captivated by it, ignoring his — its — previous survival instincts to rush toward the box.

Under the tainted energy, its transformation started to hasten as it started to grow, as a disgusting mixture of a monster and a tumor.

“Focus on its limbs, and keep it immobile,” I ordered Eleanor as I switched to my hammer, and we started attacking it. The concentrated dose of tainted energy hastened the transformation exponentially, but it also exacerbated its weaknesses to our silver weapons, which I had designed explicitly against the corrosive aura.

As we fought, Eleanor’s armor, despite all the enchantments it had, didn’t survive against the transformed creature’s corrosion aura, slowly turning into a rusty mess.

Even then, it took almost half an hour for us to kill it properly. Its remains disintegrated, just like the other corpses, once again catching that distinctive black flame.

We collapsed to the ground, listless. There was a lot to be done, but none of them was as important as breathing…

“You owe me an armor,” she growled between her desperate panting.

I just grumbled an answer. I was too spent to do anything else. But, I had to admit, after what had just happened, spending a day at the forge, working with metal sounded very tempting.

*****

— Chapter 90

“And, that’s the last of it. The dungeon is officially closed until further notice,” Eleanor said the moment she returned to my side, sealing the dungeon gate.

“Everything done?” I asked.

“Yes, we evacuated every guild and the guards are on high alert, ordered to attack anyone that dares to breach without invitation. The only problem is that it’ll take at least a day for Maria to return,” Eleanor explained in quick order.

I nodded, admiring her efficiency. Merely an hour had passed since our close call, which was all she needed to put the dungeon on high alert and stop the operation. For someone who preferred direct action above anything else, her capacity to set up an organization was admirable.

I suspected it was Maria’s flighty attitude to such aspects that had forced her to learn.

“I’m still not sure about closing the dungeon,” Eleanor said. “We have handled the crisis well enough. Is it worth losing all that money just to trick them?”

“We have already discussed it. It’s better to let them believe they had managed to cause some significant damage, maybe even that one of those … whatever they were … was loose in the dungeon. At least, until Maria returns and can make a decision.”

“Fine,” Eleanor said. She didn’t look entirely convinced, but she assented. “But don’t forget your promise. First, you’re going to adjust this monstrosity into something more elegant,” she said as she displayed her new sword.

I made sure to hide my smile, amused by the ease with which she was convinced to follow what she believed to be a wasteful plan. I must have been underestimating the value of my new sword to a significant degree. “Let’s go,” I said.

Both of us were fast enough to ignore the presence of the weaker monsters, so I didn’t expect the trip to take that long. I was wrong. She killed any insect we came across, using vitality attacks, with a fascinated expression on her face.

It slowed our descent significantly, but I said nothing. The pleasure of watching a skill improve was unmatched even after doing that to more than half a dozen skills. For Eleanor, it was a new experience. I didn’t want to interrupt her, but after her third detour, I had to speak. “Come on, miss swords master, we are wasting time,” I warned her.

“No we’re not,” she said, her voice determined.

“Look, the faster we arrive at the fourth floor, the faster I can design you a sword that might give you a mana manipulation skill,” I said. “But, if you want to waste that opportunity, it’s your choice.”

“Wait, you can do that,” she said.

“Maybe,” I responded, leery to commit it fully. “I have several ideas in mind, but whether they will work immediately or not, I don’t know. We need to experiment a lot.”

“Like how you have been experimenting with Maria,” she said. For some reason, her tone was suspicious. Only when it was followed by a sudden realization, I understood where she was coming from.

”Yes. I might have slightly obfuscated how necessary those experiments were to help me repair the swords faster,” I said, avoiding her gaze. I had no problem with that decision itself, but admitting the act of lying was never comfortable.

“You have a lot to atone for,” she said, trying to look stern, but her smile was hard to hide. She didn’t seem to care a lot about it, which didn’t surprise me. After all, it was that act of lying that saved her life just an hour ago.

“So … a dagger as well?” I countered.

Her smile slid away. “If you think you can get away with a mere dagger, you’re delusional. I need a full set of armor. Non-negotiable.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” I said, somehow maintaining a serious expression. “Now, let’s go. We have dungeon bosses to hunt.”

With that done, we started running full speed to the fourth floor. “So, you also use a spear,” she commented as we moved.

“It’s good to have a style that focuses on mobility and deflection,” I responded. “You might think to add that as an external skill, assuming you have an empty slot.”

“I do.”

“Good, “ I said, then paused. “Then, why didn’t you learn one? It wouldn’t be as strong as your main style, but even with all the advantages, an additional style can be helpful.”

“Mostly because of a lack of time. Focusing on my main skill was the more efficient approach. Anything below Rare is too useless, and developing a Rare skill requires months even with access to a fitting dungeon. At least, it was supposed to,” she corrected.

“Well, we just have to replicate it for you,” I said. “I have struggled with that a lot as well, but it’s not that difficult once one discovers the trick behind it. We can try it once we arrive at my base. I have a few Rare Breeze Spear samples. And, I still need some time to forge your armor.” She looked hopeful. “Not one based on my Epic skill, that needs two full days,” I corrected. “But, you still need an armor set that can resist the natural corrosion of the fifth floor.”

“Fine. I guess it’s a good way to utilize that downtime,” she admitted.

I smiled, happy to see that her obsession with improving her sword skills didn’t mean she refused a chance to diversify her abilities. And I knew that, with her Dexterity, her own variant of Breeze Spear would turn into a devastating weapon that could easily surpass mine.

Especially since she lacked a phobia that turned its biggest advantage useless.

We chatted even as we passed through another gate and arrived at the fourth floor, and a thicker mist surrounded us, making me glad for increased visibility. Though, not as much as it would have if it wasn’t for the fog that hung above the swamp, which was annoying.

“Disgusting place,” she growled even as her feet sank into the mud. “I was so glad when we discovered the corrosive effect would prevent us from exploring the place.”

“Understandable,” I said. “Wading through mud is not exactly my idea of a fun time either.”

“Yet, you decided to build your base here,” she said.

I shrugged. “Not because I love the environment,” I said. “But, as a Blacksmith who can forge equipment that can resist the corrosion of this place, its strategic value is far more important than the less-than-pleasant environment.”

“Fair. And, how the hell do you manage to find your path here? There’s nothing for wayfinding.”

“Here,” I said as I crouched, pushing the mud away to show her the rails I had buried. “I laid them before. My skills allow me to detect their presence.”

“You went through all that trouble just to find your path.”

“No, it helps to move the carts around,” I said.

“Carts, really?” she said even as we continued to run despite the mud. “Do you really need that much effort just to move a bunch of arrowheads around,” she asked.

“Well, no,” I said even as we continued to move. “But that’s not the only thing I move around. After all, I have a proper base here.”

“Calling a dinky little shack a base is a bit grandiose even for you, professor,” she teased.

“Maybe,” I said, letting the discussion linger as we continued to move until we finally arrived at my base. The moment her vision range touched the edge of the trees, a gasp escaped her mouth. “Not bad for a dinky little shack, is it?” I asked smugly.

“Well …” she said as she gazed upon my base, impressed. Her reaction was understandable, as the structure rose from the swamp as a single, monolithic structure, surrounded by multiple blast furnaces and steam engines. And, around them, there were almost ten discrete rings of trees to keep the base safe from the monsters.

It looked good, mostly because I had decided to put my excess of available metal to good use. Knowing that the fifth floor was too hostile to set up a permanent base — the persistent attacks from the boss monsters and air that put a vat of acid to shame was decisive enough — further incentivized me to put some more effort into my base.

Eleanor’s shock was a nice side benefit.

“I have to admit, it’s not as horrible as I imagined,” she responded, then smirked. “For a dingy little base, of course.”

I didn’t bother answering her even as I disappeared inside, and came out with two things. A modified weapon, halfway between a sword and a spear to help her switch between the skills, which I threw at her, handle first, and as she grabbed that, I threw a copy of Rare Breeze Spear skill. “I’m sure this will keep you busy for a while.”

“Explain how I am going to power-level the skill first,” she said. “And, what’s this abomination?”

I shrugged. “Simple,” I said as I raised my hand. She threw it back. “Just start treating it as a sword, and start channeling a vitality attack. Then, halfway in, switch to your spear skill, and complete that attack. Considering you’re using an Epic skill as a template, it should work.”

“That’s it?” she said.

“Yep, that’s it. Trivial,” I said. “Now, why don’t you play with it while I go and start working on your armor.” Seeing her enthusiasm, I had to quickly add a correction. “The temporary one.”

“Fine,” she growled playfully as she raised her hand, and the skill orb disappeared. She grunted as she closed her eyes, her discomfort clear.

I left to forge her armor.