Chapter 17

Chapter 017

─Krrrk......?

The Hobgoblin let out a confused sound.

Unlike the force with which I had thrust it, the sword had only managed to dig slightly into the creature’s flesh.

“Hmm...... So it really will not work?”

I had thought I might somehow be able to use it as long as I remembered the stance, but reality did not seem to be so forgiving.

─Kraaaagh!!

I dodged the club it swung as if thrashing about, pulled my sword free, and widened the distance.

‘So I cannot use it unless I have learned it properly.’

A skill did not activate just because I imitated it.

It seemed I had to formally acquire the skill and infuse it with the Trait suited to that category before I could receive its proper effects.

‘So I cannot just freeload skills.’

While entering that information into my mind, I hid behind a tree to avoid the rampaging Hobgoblin.

Even though I had stabbed precisely at its weakness, it was still lively.

If I had been using an ordinary weapon, that would have been an instant kill, but with the performance of an unenhanced Starting Weapon, the damage was clearly weak.

“Then I just have to keep attacking until it dies─”

The creature’s eyes turned bloodshot as it charged at me with a roar.

I quickly lowered my posture, and by a hair’s breadth, the club that swept over my head smashed the tree beside me to pieces.

“.......”

......Should I have just gone to the low-level zone first?

I swallowed dryly at the thought that my head would have ended up like that if my reaction had been even a little slower.

“......Let us finish this quickly.”

I composed myself and gripped my sword firmly.

The one fortunate thing was that this creature did not have a group with it.

Usually, Hobgoblins moved together with ordinary Goblin packs, but this one had no such companions.

‘That man must have taken care of them all.’

Or he had separated it from the rest.

Either way, the fact that the number of enemies I had to face had decreased was an advantage for me.

I was better suited to one-on-one combat than to one-against-many.

‘Now.’

I used Parrying to knock the creature’s strike high into the air.

I had not realized it when I was playing the game, but now that I was the one actually fighting, the tension was considerable.

More than anything, the fact that I might die if I failed even once made my mouth go completely dry.

“......It makes Ishara seem impressive all over again.”

She had always shown only a confident smile, so I had not realized it.

Facing an enemy directly, rather than from beyond a screen, was this terrifying.

Perhaps Ishara had not been all that different either.

“Just die already.”

Deflect and stab. Deflect and stab.

Only after I repeated it two more times did the Hobgoblin roll its eyes back and collapse.

Three times in total.

It was all thanks to striking the weak point in its chest every time.

“It is over now.”

When I turned around, the unknown man was staring at me with his eyes wide open.

***

After the battle ended, I gave him some of the herbs I had gathered that were good for healing wounds.

“Oh? Is this not Red Moon Grass? To think you had this.”

Seeing that he recognized it, I must have gathered the right thing.

If I had gathered the wrong herb, I had planned to quietly throw it away.

“Thank you. This should be enough for emergency treatment.”

“That is a relief.”

“Are you truly an apprentice? That skill is one thing, but to think you even have this kind of knowledge.......”

“You can tell by looking at my badge, cannot you?”

I showed him the Apprentice Adventurer badge on my chest, but he still looked as though he could not believe it.

“More importantly, what were you doing here? Judging by your equipment, you do not seem like a first-floor adventurer.”

“Ah, I am late with my introduction. My apologies.”

As though he had suddenly come to his senses, he held out his hand.

“My name is Felix. I am a 3-star adventurer.”

“I am Isran.”

As I shook the hand he offered, I thought to myself.

If he was 3-star, he should have graduated from the first floor at the very least. What was someone like that doing here?

“That look says you are wondering what a 3-star adventurer is doing here. Well, that is only natural. I was originally active on the third floor, after all.”

“Someone like that struggled against a Hobgoblin on the first floor?”

“You are quite harsh, my friend. Well, I suppose it cannot be helped.......”

He said he was an adventurer who mainly operated on the third floor, but he had gotten into an accident while working alone and was on his way back.

While he was badly wounded from the lower floor, he encountered a pack of Goblins, and while confronting them, things had ended up this way.

It was a more foolish reason than I had expected.

‘So that is why the Hobgoblin was alone.’

As I had expected, this man had taken care of the pack first.

He probably had not fought them head-on, so he must have quietly dealt with them one by one before being discovered by the Hobgoblin, which served as the group’s guardian.

“In any case, when I return, I will be sure to repay you generously. I may not look it, but I am an adventurer affiliated with Ortanis.”

“......Ortanis?”

“That is right. Though I am only at the bottom, ha ha!”

As he said that, he showed me a seal. The winged sword emblem was certainly the one belonging to Ortanis.

I knew that the families of Trinity kept adventurers under their command.

But did they accept people only up to the third-floor level? Their cutoff seemed more generous than I had expected.

“Come to think of it, if you are an apprentice, you must have seen the young lady at the Selection Grounds.”

“I suppose I did.”

“Oh~ How fortunate! How was she? Is she not such a graceful person?”

“.......”

That hysterical girl was graceful......?

Was this the commoner’s fantasy about nobles? Or was he simply partial to his own side?

I felt that something terribly unpleasant might come out of my mouth, so I simply kept it shut.

“By the way, I am curious as well. How did you come this far when you are an apprentice? If hunting is your goal, there should be better places.”

“I am going to the Guardian’s Room.”

The Guardian’s Room was the formal name of the boss room.

The idea that an apprentice was trying to go to the boss room must have been that unexpected, because he let out a sigh.

“The Guardian’s Room? There is something like that here...... Ah, there is. But you will not be able to enter it.”

“I cannot enter it?”

Could an expedition have been organized?

The area around the Lift Platform had been quiet for that.

As I tilted my head, Felix spoke.

“That is not what I mean. The boss there is too strong, so no one challenges it anymore.”

“......Too strong? Even though this is the first floor?”

“They say it was weak in the past...... but it kept growing stronger, and now it is apparently impossible to handle at the first-floor level. Strange, is it not?”

Was there something like that?

I had never heard of a gimmick where a boss grew stronger and stronger.

“No matter how many times one defeats it, the reward stays the same, while the difficulty keeps rising. It is not worth the cost. Right now, it is a place no one challenges.”

“.......”

“At present, the guards are monitoring entry. Even if you go, you will not be able to enter.”

This was an unexpected problem.

If it was the guard, then that meant it was being managed at the royal level.

To get past them, I would need a verified token or the accompaniment of someone who had one.

After thinking for a moment, I opened my mouth.

“You said you would repay me earlier, did you not? Do it now.”

“Hm? But I do not particularly have anything on me at the moment. Shall I give you a Mana Stone?”

“That seal.”

I pointed at the seal Felix had.

“Can it not get us through the guard inspection?”

If it was the seal of Ortanis, there was a good chance it could get us through inspection.

Since it was proof backed by one of Trinity’s great houses, its credibility should be certain.

“Hmm...... It is possible, yes, but this is not an object I can give away. Only the owner can use it.”

“You do not need to give it to me. Just come with me and get me through the inspection at the Guardian’s Room.”

“Hm......? Even if we go, we will not be able to defeat the boss with just the two of us.”

“I know.”

To defeat the boss, one had to go through a special summoning process in the boss room, but if the royal family was managing it, there was a high chance summoning was currently prohibited.

If I summoned it on my own without permission, I might head straight to prison.

“The boss is not my objective.”

“That makes it even harder to understand. There is nothing there to take, after all.”

“......?”

But what he said next was even harder to understand.

There was nothing to take? Did he really not know about that?

He did not know about the thing in the boss room?

‘......What on earth have the Possessors been doing?’

I did not know about anything else, but this was an extremely easy gimmick, so I had assumed it was already known.

Since he said they did not know, I was actually the one left bewildered.

“It does not matter.”

“Is that so? Well, if that is what you want, I will not stop you...... but there will be many monsters along the way. I will not be of any help.”

“I will handle that. Are you coming?”

“I shall. I was the one who said I would repay you.”

Felix readily agreed.

He probably thought he could receive treatment at the outpost near the boss room, so it would serve two purposes.

What surprised me more was that he accepted leaving all the escorting to me.

Had seeing me defeat the Hobgoblin been that impressive?

Now that it was decided, I headed for the place where the boss room was located.

I left the guiding to Felix.

It was to avoid drawing suspicion over why an apprentice knew the place so well.

“Left from here. There is a swamp, so be careful.”

“Right. The path is faint, so follow closely.”

Perhaps his claim of being 3-star was not a lie, because he was quite knowledgeable about the geography of the first floor.

“There is a monster ahead.”

“How many?”

“One Hobgoblin. It seems to be scouting.”

“Let us take it out quickly and move on.”

We avoided monster groups as much as possible, but quickly dealt with any creature wandering around alone.

As I said before, even small Mana Stones were money.

If I knocked them away with Parrying like before and stabbed their weak points a few times, the battle ended quickly.

“No matter how many times I see it, I cannot believe it.”

Felix’s dazed voice came as a bonus.

“I was not mistaken. No matter how I look at it, that is Parrying. Have you already awakened the Mysticism Trait?”

“Yes.”

Mysticism was a Trait one could obtain only after unlocking Magic Power and Divinity first.

A mere apprentice had unlocked all three Traits and was even using Parrying proficiently, so his reaction was only natural.

“You do not even look twenty yet. How did you learn it?”

“Let us not ask private questions.”

“Hmm.......”

I understood that he was curious, but I had no obligation to tell him honestly.

In any case, I was an apprentice. Even if he spread rumors, no one would believe them, so keeping quiet was to my advantage.

“A child of a noble family? No, then there is no way I would not know...... Did he fall straight from the sky?”

Since I did not answer, Felix began muttering to himself.

I ignored him throughout and pulled my hood deeper over my head so my face would not be exposed.

“May I ask this? That is a Starting Weapon, is it not?”

“Yes.”

“The sword was returning on its own and all that─”

“It is not something like Sword Control, so do not misunderstand.”

“No, then─”

“If you keep asking questions like that, I will shut your mouth.”

“.......”

Even if that sounded cold, there was nothing I could do.

From my perspective, it would become troublesome if that man took unnecessary interest in me.

To begin with, I had never planned to come here with anyone else.

The reason I had belatedly decided to accompany Felix was because entering the boss room was worth even more than that.

“Does the weapon have a special function? I have never heard that Starting Weapons have something like that.......”

“.......”

“To begin with, defeating a Hobgoblin with such a weapon is strange too.......”

It seemed he had quite the vivid imagination.

As he said, defeating an upper species on the first floor with a Starting Weapon was difficult.

Ordinary sword strikes worked only against lower species like Goblins, and once the level range rose even slightly above that, the damage did not go through.

That was why, except at the very beginning, one had to prepare a real weapon, even if it was low-grade.

The reason I could defeat upper species like Hobgoblins even with a Starting Weapon was because I targeted their weaknesses.

A weakness was a vital point. If aimed at properly, it could inflict major damage even if the weapon’s performance was low.

In the game, it had been treated as fixed damage, and it did not seem all that different in reality.

‘That is why the build that settled in was the Mysticism-Parrying build.’

Constantly breaking the enemy’s posture with Parrying, then stabbing into the momentary opening to attack its weakness.

If one repeated that, it was theoretically possible to overcome any enemy.

It was the reason I could see the ending even with a Starting Weapon, and I had used this method when defeating Ishara and the Sasquatch as well.

‘It is an excessively extreme method, though.’

It was called a build, but in truth, it was no different from having to memorize every enemy’s patterns and timing precisely.

It went beyond physical ability and was closer to a stunt of sheer force.

“But is it not dangerous for you to travel alone? It seems better for you to find companions.”

“I am more comfortable alone.”

“A dungeon is too dangerous a place to traverse without companions.”

“I do not think that is something someone who went alone to the third floor and almost died should say.”

“Ahem.......”

Felix coughed awkwardly, but it was not exactly wrong.

Unlike in a game, reality ended when one died.

Since I could not challenge it thousands of times, every moment was a single chance.

On top of that, I had to move my body directly rather than using a keyboard.

“I will try as far as I can.”

In the end, that was the only answer I could give.

I did not know whether the journey ahead would be optimistic or pessimistic, but I would find the answer each time.

I had always done so.

“We have arrived. It is there.”

After walking for several hours straight, we were able to arrive at the entrance of the boss room that had been our destination.

It was shaped like a staircase descending underground.

An outpost had been set up around it, and guards were keeping a strict watch over the surroundings.

“Adventurers? What business do the two of you have here?”

“We would like to enter the Guardian’s Room. Would that be possible?”

He handed his seal to the guard protecting the entrance.

“......Gold?”

The guard who checked the seal tilted his head.

Then he returned the seal with great courtesy.

“You may enter, Adventurer.”

“Keep up the good work.”

What was that? Did they normally add a respectful title after “adventurer”?

That guard had not even asked our purpose, nor had he tried to check the apprentice following behind.

No matter that Felix was affiliated with Ortanis, it should not be this lax...... What was going on?

“This is the Guardian’s Room. There is not much to it, is there?”

A boss room without the boss summoned had a strong feeling of emptiness.

The form of a boss room differed depending on the boss theme, but since most of the first floor was simple, the place we were in was also merely a wide, empty space.

“I will take a brief look around.”

“Go ahead. I will rest here.”

I said I would look around, but there was only one place I needed to check.

The boss room was structured like a wide colosseum, with an entrance and an exit opened at the front and back.

The entrance was the staircase we had just descended.

The exit was the large door opposite it.

Those who had already defeated the boss could open that door and go to the second floor.

“Let me see...... There is something strange here.......”

Ah, I was truly terrible at acting.

Hiding my awkwardness, I came to the center of the colosseum.

The exit could not be opened anyway, so I had no interest in it.

What I was aiming for was the large stone monument embedded in front of the colosseum.

This was the summoning gimmick. If Mana was poured into it, the boss would appear.

Of course, if I did that, clearing it would be the least of my problems, and I would become a criminal, so I had no intention of doing it.

My goal was the stone embedded in the center of the monument.

‘As expected, no one has taken it.’

This was called an Engraving Stone.

Like a Mana Stone, it could be absorbed to increase Mana, and it could also be used as an efficient Enhancement Stone.

Of course, it had one more effect besides that. That was the reason I had deliberately come to get it first.

‘Still, I never thought no one would have taken something this easy yet.’

An Engraving Stone was not exactly a clear reward, so it could be taken immediately, and since it was formed from condensed Mana in the boss room, it would steadily regenerate even if taken.

However, because its generation speed was slow, I had expected it to be no bigger than a grain of millet.......‘Why is it so big?’

The one embedded there looked to be about the size of my fist at a glance.

It meant no one had ever taken it until now.

How could they not know about this? It looked like something anyone would want to try pulling out at least once.

“Then, let me just......?”

Just as I was about to reach out, I saw that something had been written around the place where the Engraving Stone was embedded.

What was this? There had been nothing like that in the game.

“There is something written here. What is this?”

“Hm? Something is written there?”

The boss room was dark, so I could not see it properly.

Felix came closer, lit a small torch, and shone it on the spot.

“Ah, this. It is an inscription that has been here since this place was opened. No one knows what it means, though.”

“.......”

He spoke as if it was nothing important, but the moment I saw the words illuminated by the fire, I could not say a word.

Because...... those were letters that should not exist in this place.

Letters that did not exist here, yet that I could read.

There was a sentence written there in Hangul.

─Sunan. I dedicate this to you, who will one day come here.

“What......?”

That was my name.