Leave a comment

Crack!

With a satisfying sense of landing a square hit on the enemy, another Spartoi falls to the ground. The path that our party walked down was littered with their remains. And now, yet another heap of bones joined them on the ground.

“Whoa!”

But there was no time to enjoy the victory that we’ve achieved, as their attacks were continuous and persistent. After taking time to take down a group of spartoies, yet another group regenerates during that time and launches their attacks on us.

Though it was only Esther and I holding the line against their attacks, we were doing more than enough to handle the situation. It’s obvious how easy it is for me, but Esther also showed some prowess in her power to take down the enemies with ease, as if to show off that she really deserves her spot as one of the top 10 ranked users of the server.

“Behind you!”

Cutting down the three in front of me, Esther warned me about the last Spartoi that I didn’t notice in time.

Even if I were to have allowed it to land hit on me, it wouldn’t result in much damage but I still was thankful to Esther.

Sensing the Spartoi presence I cut it down without even turning around then gave a smile towards Esther.

“Thanks, Esther.”
“Don’t mention it.”

Seeing my smile, Esther smiled in return as well.

“Could you two move aside a bit for a moment?”

Hearing Katalina’s voice, we stepped away almost at the same time.

A powerful jet of flames blazed past me and Esther as it spread in a wide cone into the area in front of us. Soon the flames kept going until it crashed into the wall, spreading further beyond and burning all the Spartoies down.

Even during all that time, the Spartoies nevertheless walked through the hellish fire landscape as they tried to attack us, though they collapsed into nothing but bones after losing all of their health before getting close enough.

“Phew!”

The massive blow onto the enemies was honestly satisfying to see, making me let out a thankful sigh unconsciously. We had finally gained a moment of respite.

As I caught my breath, I rolled my neck a bit to loosen up the tightened muscles. Since doing this small bit of exercise actually has a little effect on your muscles, I got into the habit of doing so whenever I needed to and Esther apparently gained a similar habit since she was rolling her wrist and ankles to give them a light stretch.

“Phew, I’ve only seen your prowess through the TV, but it is as amazing as I thought. I feel like we won’t even need to do anything at this rate!”
“You’re right, you are all really amazing!”

Sermian and Ashley, who were on standby behind us, gave us a thumbs up and showered us with praises. The only thing I could do in response was to give an awkward smile back to her. I was simply hunting down the monsters like I usually did, yet to receive such great praises made me feel confused and ended up giving only an awkward smile in response.

“You’re right. It’s the first time I had actually fought together with Sister Ellie, but she really takes down every monster without any flaw in her steps and movements. She truly is amazing!”

Esther also joined in their praising of me. However, the train of praises that kept getting poured onto me didn’t last for too long.

“Another group of Spartoies approaching again.”

Because Katalina, who was the only one keeping an eye on the front, informed us that yet another group of Spartoies had arrived.

As we still had some distance from them, it would have been great if Katalina had sent another magic spell towards their direction but unfortunately she just shakes her head towards me meaning that there was still some time delay left until she could cast a spell again.

“Let’s go, Esther!”
“Okay!”

Yet another round of hunting ensued. The monsters weren’t quite strong enough to warrant me using any powerful skills, which was why Esther was the one using her skills to effectively take down the enemies, while on my side I simply took down enemies diligently with only normal swings of my sword.

Clang!

Just as I was almost completely focused on cutting down the Spartoies, I heard the sound of metal clashing with metal instead of the usual sound of metal crashing against bones.

Instantly coming back to my senses and staring at my opponent. I was sure that this monster wasn’t all that different appearance-wise to the other Spartoies, but it had three horns on its head rather than just one, and the equipment that it was wearing looked to be of a higher quality as well.

“It’s a Spartoi Knight.”

It’s a Master tier monster that’s on the same level as the Death Knight. Though it’s not riding on the back of a Phantom Steed, it had faster movement than the Death Knight, making everyone think of it as quite a difficult monster to deal with.

Slash!

But that was all. The only thing it could do was block my single attack, as afterward, it staggered backward from the impact, which I used the chance to cut the Spartoi Knight’s skull clean in half.

I had cut down a Death Knight in a single blow in the past, so of course, this would be easy for me. Even the blow I had landed on him earlier was so powerful that even the Spartoi Knight had a hard time defending properly against.

Hearing Katalina’s whisper in my ear, I smirked. Even I felt that I had long since crossed the line of being overpowered and beyond.

After making easy work of all the Spartoi Knights that appeared in front of me, I went to support Esther who was having a difficult battle while being surrounded by a number of Spartoies and three or four Spartoi Knights.

Crack!

As I landed a clean blow right on the head of the Spartoi Knight who had been constantly harassing Esther from behind, a clear sound of a skull being crushed completely rang out through the dungeon.

Not stopping there, I continued my attack by cutting down all the Spartoies who targetted me. Gaining some breathing room thanks to me, Esther defeated one Spartoi Knight, then cut down the rest of the Spartoies one after another.

After the both of us stabbed our swords directly into the very last Spartoi Knight at the same time, we felt that the battle finally finished.

“Thank you, sister.”
“But with this, the debt I had to you is paid back, okay?”
“Fufu, ok.”

We didn’t even set far from the entrance, so seeing Esther having difficulty already meant that this dungeon’s difficulty was pretty high.

“Let us take a small rest here then move onto the next room.”

Hearing my suggestion, everyone nodded in agreement. This particular dungeon wasn’t divided into floors going downwards but rather divided each section by a gigantic metallic door. It seemed to me that you’d have to either destroy the door or unlock it somehow to progress.

And it was obvious that we would be in another battle as soon as the doors opened, which was why I suggested we rest before it.

“Did anyone prepare a campfire kit?”

As opposed to regular dungeons, raid dungeons that are high difficulty don’t allow you to teleport back to town from the dungeon. You would either need to go back to the entrance of the dungeon or clear the whole dungeon in order to return back to the village.

Therefore for dungeons that have numerous floors or high difficulty, it would sometimes take a party a whole day to completely clear the dungeon. And a campfire kit is a must-have in those situations.

We’ve already arrived at the edge of this room. If we were to go back out, we’ll need to fight those monsters again so we’d lose a significant amount of fatigue. We have to set up a temporary camp using this Campfire kit so that we can log out from the game or restore lost fatigue. In the case that you do log out, you would return to the exact same place so it’s not an exaggeration to say it’s simply a system built to recover your fatigue points.

Besides, it was the basics of any raid attempts to restore even just that little amount of fatigue points and get back to peak performance.

“I’ve brought it.”
“Me too.”

The ones that raised their hands were Sermian and Ashely. I looked over to Katalina and Esther each for a second. Katalina’s expression looked as if she just realized that she had forgotten to bring one, while Esther stuck her tongue out a little and admitted her mistake.

“Tsk…”

I clicked my tongue in annoyance. It was understandable since whenever they would go to raid dungeons, their guild members would bring one for them and they’d never need to bring one themselves.

For me, I had plenty of experience in raid dungeons and always knew to be prepared ahead of time, which was why I had brought one this time as well. In the past, just buying this one campfire kit was still a considerable cost for me, but this time I bought 10 of them with me. The campfire kits are the cheapest out of all consumables, costing 100 gold each. Seeing as how it costs 10 euros in real life money equivalent, it was certainly not something that cheap from the point of view of the peasants.

Because if you think about it, it costs just as much as buying a set of fried chicken in Korea! From that point of view, I had just spent the money equivalent to ordering 10 fried chicken meals as if it was nothing at all. If this was the past, I would have been shivering and crying from the price of it all.

“Now, I’ll be the one to do the first installation then.”

While I was deep in thought, Sermian installed the campfire already. Even though I did say ‘installation’, it was nothing but just opening a square box and taking out the firewood inside of it, lighting the wood with the flint from the box afterward. But since we had a mage with us, we didn’t even need to make use of the flint that was supplied.

“Wait, why are you staring at me like that?”

As I gazed directly at Katalina for a long time, Katalina gave the expression as if it was too much of a bother for her.

“Please~”
“Tsk.”

Hearing my plea, Katalina lightly flicked her finger, to which a small fire erupted from the firewood bundle. It was a simple cantrip that she used, a spell that gives a small ignition spark.

Of course, the damage it gives was 0 so you can use it even in safe areas apparently, making it very useful for campfires. The only problem is that it is a spell limited only to mages.

A party without any mage would have to keep striking the flint for a long time trying to light up the wood, which is difficult unless you are used to it. It was to the point where systematically, you were half forced to bring at least one mage in your party whenever going on a raid dungeon¹.

After the firewood lit up and roared into a fire, I felt the warmth flowing from it. Soon, I felt my fatigue slowly recovering. It was a campfire time that you could only make use of within dungeons since campfires in normal fields are ineffective in recovering fatigue. Instead of using a campfire, you would either go to the inn or sleep at the resting area that you owned to recover from fatigue faster.

“If we had someone from the thief class, we would be able to gain a buff from listening to a song as well.”

Esther spoke as if it was a missed opportunity. Everyone nodded in agreement without a single hesitation. It was unfortunate, but there was no helping it. Speaking of which, would Tiara have learned the song buff skill? Since the ‘Assassin’ class was clearly an advancement from a basic class, she may have learned the basic bard skill on the way to her growth as well.

I feel like I should ask her about that when I get a chance later on.

1. Shiro: a item that costs 10 euros or you cant prooced and that forces you to have a mage to use.
   ~~GAME FEATURE~~.