Chapter 26: Dungeon [2] "Huff…Huff…Huff"
Kneeling on one leg, whilst supporting myself with my sword, which was stabbed on the ground, I gasped for breath.
-Click!
-Kueeeekk!
Before I could even have enough time to catch my breath, a goblin tried to sneak up from behind me, but fortunately, I was still alert and dealt with it in one swift movement.
'And here I was telling myself to keep my arrogance in check…"
Holding the left side of my stomach, I felt my whole body become dizzy. I overexerted myself.
Looking at my surroundings, the area around me was littered with corpses.
My previously clean clothes were now drenched in green blood.
For the past hour, I had been fighting against more than 20 goblins.
At first, I thought that dealing with 20 goblins wouldn't really pose a problem with my current abilities, but I had severely overestimated my capabilities and underestimated the goblin's abilities.
Just because goblins were supposed to be weak, didn't mean they were actually weak.
Yeah sure, maybe in a 1-on-1 they were easy, but not when more than 20 of them were coming at me at the same time.
It also had to be noted that my rank was still G+.
I was inside of an F ranked dungeon, meaning that every monster I was fighting had higher stats than me!
If it weren't for the fact that I practiced the [keiki style], I would've never been able to make it this far.
Although stats were important, they weren't everything.
It had to be said, stats were only a mild representation of one's ability.
If someone with high stats were to fight a highly skilled warrior that had lower stats, but far better battle awareness, then the highly skilled warrior could still win.
It was like in games when fighting a boss.
The boss always had better stats than the main character, but he/she could nevertheless still beat the boss.
As long as you adopt the right strategy, you could win regardless of your stats. Well…given that the disparity in stats was not that different. If the stats of the boss was a lot higher than your game character, then you might as well kiss your game goodbye.
On the off-chance that the boss was stronger, but the difference in stats between boss and character wasn't that big, then you could do several things to beat it.
Like for example, if you hit a monster on their weak spot.
By hitting their weak spot, the monsters will sustain far more damage as compared to a regular strike.
In goblin's cases, their weak spot was was located right on their forehead, just in between their brows.
Because my sword's art was extremely fast, I was able to swiftly deal with the goblins with one quick stab.
It may sound easy, but it really wasn't.
I had to fully concentrate each time, as a slight miss could cause me to lose my rhythm.
Moreover, because there were so many of them coming at me at the same time, I had to kite them for one hour before I could finally kill them all.
It was only after that I dealt with all the goblins, that I felt pathetic for telling myself how I shouldn't become arrogant and always humble myself in the face of danger.
Had there been one or two more goblins, I really might've died.
Mhhh…maybe not died, but I would've at least gotten severely injured.
Well if we look at this on a positive note, I was almost halfway towards reaching my goal of collecting 50,000 U.
Because the [Keiki style] primarily focused on dealing a singular swift movement at unimaginable speeds, the corpses around me were all in pristine conditions, meaning that I could sell them for more money.
Tapping on my bracelet once, I grabbed a goblin and placed it on top of my bracelet.
-Sham!
Right after placing the goblin on top of my bracelet, it disappeared.
"Great stuff"
Like this, for the next 10 minutes, I placed all the goblins that I killed inside of the bracelet.
"Phewww, 21 goblins huh"
If each goblin went for 1,000 U, right now I had accumulated a total of 21,000 U.
Well, that was if we exclude the 11% clause which would be around 2310 U.
Wiping off the sweat that had accumulated on my forehead, I tapped my bracelet twice and a water bottle suddenly appeared in front of me.
"Dimensional storages sure are handy heh…"
By tapping the bracelet once, I could put anything inside of the bracelet as long as it didn't exceed the storage capacity.
By tapping twice I could retrieve whatever I stored inside of the bracelet, as long as I thought of what I wanted.
Truly convenient.
Taking the water bottle, I took big gulps.
All that exercise had made me extremely thirsty.
After drinking the water, I took out a [Stamina recovery potion] and drank it.
Soon after finishing the [Stamina recovery potion], I felt a rush of energy enter my body, making my previous fatigued expression turn much better.
I used three [Stamina recovery potions] during my fight with the goblins, yet even with that, I was completely drained by the end of the fight.
Standing up, I decided to stop looking for goblins for a while.
Since I didn't think I was ready to face another goblin horde and hunting a single goblin at a time was just a waste of time, I decided to directly look for boss monsters.
If goblins and monsters of similar strength were considered weak opponents, boss monsters, which were a lot stronger than regular monsters in dungeons, were considered formidable opponents for those who were of the same rank.
Not only did they have much more health, but each of them also had the strength that almost neared the next rank.
If you were in a G rank dungeon, a boss monster's strength would be at around G+ almost nearing F- rank. Making them extremely tough opponents to face.
…Wait, why deal with a boss monster that were stronger than a horde of goblins?
It was simple really.
When fighting against the horde of goblins, I had to repeatedly aim for their weak spots while kiting, moreover, because I was being attacked by all sides, I barely had enough time to breathe.
It was like doing HIIT cardio for 1 hour straight.
With boss monsters, although they were stronger, I could have more room to breathe.
Depending on the boss monster I was going to face, chances were that fighting against them was going to be easier than fighting against a horde of goblins.
Boss monsters were all different.
Some were slow, some were extremely fast, some were tanky, some were super strong, there were many different types of boss monsters, and depending on which one I was going to face the difficulty was going to vary.
For example, if I were to face a really strong boss that had limited mobility, against my sword's art it wouldn't pose as much of a challenge as I could just overwhelm it with my speed. However, if I were to face a similarly fast boss monster then things would become troublesome.
The difficulty of a boss monster depended on how well I could counter its flaws.
Each F rank dungeon had around 25 bosses, and although I didn't know the exact location of each boss monster, with my knowledge as the author of this novel, I could more or less get a basic idea of where they were.
Although each dungeon was different, they followed a specific set of rules which I had set up.
Though looking back at it now, I think I may have overcomplicated them a bit…
A dungeon followed a law of conservation of energy.
Once a dungeon was created, its energy capacity was permanent. Meaning that if the balance within the dungeon were to be increased, the dungeon would break and destabilize.
so as long as the dungeon capacity remained greater or equal to the external energies inside of the dungeon (monsters + humans), then the dungeon will function without a problem.
Moreover, the monster's energy was always constant, so the only thing that could cause a dungeon to break was if the external energy increased to the point that the overall energy exceeded the dungeon energy capacity.
To make things easier to understand, let's assume a dungeon was a half-filled balloon, where the air inside of it represented the total number of monster energy inside of a dungeon.
Once a human entered a dungeon, the amount of air inside of the balloon increased proportionally to the human's strength. The stronger the human was the more air was filled inside of the balloon.
if suddenly too many humans entered the dungeon, or too much air was blown into the balloon, then the balloon will pop, and in the case of dungeons, they would break and desync.
That was the first and most basic rule of a dungeon.
The second rule was that, once a monster was slain, the dungeon will replenish its energy by 'spawning' another monster with equivalent strength.
Since a dungeon was located in the demon world, the monsters which were 'respawned' in the dungeon were just monsters that were found in the nearby region.
'Respawning' was the process in which a monster was replaced by another inside of a dungeon.
Dungeons were a source of nourishment for monsters, and once a monster inside of the dungeon was killed, a monster would automatically be drawn by the dungeon to fill its spot.
However, a dungeon could only draw a monster that fit the 'missing energy capacity'
If the monster was stronger than the monster killed, then the dungeon would automatically reject its existence and prevent it from entering.
A dungeon could only be considered cleared when the dungeon could no longer 'spawn' monsters, as all the ones in the vicinity had died.
Yeah sure, you could technically clear a dungeon by just exceeding its dungeon capacity and causing it to desync, but that would be stupid.
Not only will the hunters inside of the dungeon find themselves stuck in the demon world, due to the desync, but you would also lose a source of income as the monsters inside of a dungeon went for a lot of money due to their tough bodies.
Moreover, dungeons were only dangerous for those that entered, for the most part, they were harmless.
Why would anyone want to clear them?
Lastly, in the third rule, the number of boss monsters present inside of a dungeon differed depending on the rank of a dungeon.
Where the higher the dungeon rank the lower the number of boss monsters present in the dungeon.
Moreover, each boss covered a certain area inside of the dungeon and each split the dungeon evenly.
This meant that all I had to do right now was find a boss monster, and from there, using a map, I would be able to locate where the other bosses were.
…or at least get a general idea.
Walking forwards, I could see the towering sand dunes before me.
'There should be a boss monster in this area…'
Staring at the sand dunes, I was almost certain a boss monster was going to be there.
Not only was the terrain here different compared to the other areas of the dungeon, but as I looked around I could see goblins and other monsters staying away from this place.
Thus I took a brief moment to prepare myself before making my way towards the desert-like terrain.
As I walked up the dune I felt a sudden wave of heat wash over my face, prompting me to take out a towel and cover my face with it, leaving a slight opening for my eyes.
As I was walking forward, I could feel my feet slowly sinking into the stand, making it harder for me to move forward.
-Kuuuak!
Moreover, with the occasional monsters popping from beneath the sand, my journey towards the boss became extremely arduous.
-Click!
Swiftly taking out my sword, in one smooth movement, I stabbed towards the monster that was trying to attack me.
-Clank!
"Huh?"
Surprisingly for the first time today, I couldn't kill a monster with one strike.
-Screeech!
Letting out a large screech, presumingly due to the pain of being hit, the monster which resembled a worm tried to assault me.
Lowering my body, I twisted my body and elbowed the worm sending it flying in the air.
-Shlup!
Diving deep beneath the sand, silence returned to my surroundings.
Looking beneath, to my feet, I closed my eyes and felt the ground below me.
"huuuu…"
Letting out a long breath, I concentrated on feeling any vibration coming from beneath me.
"There you are…"
-Shaa!
Appearing from behind my back, I stabbed my sword behind me, right in between my armpit.
-Screeeeeeech!
Hearing the loud screech and feeling my sword become heavier, I turned around, and like a skewer, the worm hanged from my sword as it penetrated deep into its mouth.
-Thump!
Slashing my sword down, the worm fell on the sand.
Staring at the corpse of the creature I just killed, I thought
'It seems like its weakness is the mouth…'