Apinsig
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Chapter 233 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”
🕑 Added 2024-10-18 09:36:25 +0000 UTCPov Falcon
I watched another group come out of the floor guardian's room. They went in with 15 and came out with 14. Looks like they lost their tank. So that charge is more of a problem than I thought. Still, I think my strategy has to be the same as I use with every charging monster. It’s unfortunate that it’s so nerve-wracking, but if I pull it off, I think no one can beat my record for the fastest floor guardian clear on this floor.
There were many groups waiting for their turn, but mine was still a few days off. What I wasn’t used to was the hostility shown, even here.
It had started to get bad on the last floor, but it seemed like the only thing that kept everyone at least a little bit civil was the fact that the dungeon would give you punishments for disobeying its rules. And well, no one—well, there were some crazies out there—but generally speaking, no one wanted those kinds of meat drops, not to mention the constant escaping you'd have to do from the roaming guardians and hunters.
It was interesting to see which groups hated each other. It seems like the big three were left alone like they always seem to be. It made sense since almost everyone in this dungeon was an outer member of at least one of those guilds.
The guilds and clans that held territory—they were the ones causing trouble, although clans usually just stick to small areas and wanted to be left alone. If I were to believe it, they had hideouts, but I have yet to stumble upon a quest that could give me one.
Perhaps that would be a good idea to focus a little bit more on. I think I should be able to use that as a safe place to store my stuff, but those places are still more of a rumor than anything else. I do have two legendary loot pieces that I really couldn’t use for my next weapon, so perhaps that's enough to get some information.
It seems like it’s time to visit an information exchange. I’m used to information brokers, but information exchanges are sort of a new thing. It’s a new group that has appeared providing a sorely needed service, especially in this dungeon as it’s so big and there seem to be so many adventurers here.
If you offered some sort of service or just want an official way of someone contacting you, you could leave what this group is calling a ‘calling card.’ That wordplay made me smile.
Using them, I should be able to figure out which clan would be willing to sell some secretive information and where I could contact them. It was unfortunate that it wasn’t allowed to use the rooftops to move around the town, but at least it was a good thing that I could remember things incredibly easily, so making my way through the tight back alleys wasn’t difficult.
As I took another turn, I stopped moving as I felt my detection paper shift a bit in my pocket. Damn it, so they couldn’t let it go, could they? Perhaps there is still time to get away. Immediately, I turned around, but about 20 feet away, a person appeared, blocking my retreat path. “Your senses are remarkable, but I’m going to get that sword of yours.”
I turned around to look at the person who spoke, and it was the same I had put on my sword to a few days ago. It’s unfortunate that I couldn’t kill him then. “So you’re really about to break the dungeon rules just for a little bit of coin? If you’re that hard up, there are organizations that can help you.” I said, hoping he would let this go.
“You arrogant little bastard, I’m not going to become some slave just because we had a bad run or two. Besides, who said anything about killing you? Just give us that weapon, and we won’t beat you near to death, and then we’ll heal you up once we get what we want. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that we need that sword more than you do.” I could almost believe those words, but his eyes said otherwise, and it seemed like he picked up that I wasn’t believing him.
“Fine. I do this because I love to do this—it’s so satisfying to watch the lucky bastards who get such good drops finally realize they’re nothing special.” I believe he was going to go into a long monologue, and I really had no desire to listen to it. So I put my hand on my sword, which shut them up, and then I pulled it out slowly. They readied themselves.
“Don’t be stupid now—you wouldn’t want to risk killing any of us, would you? Those penalties are quite harsh.”
His words made me laugh, and I tried to stop when one of them took a step back. My laugh wasn’t that bad now, was it? But their stupidity was simply so great that it was hard not to laugh. Okay, Fallon, please stop laughing now. It took a ridiculous amount of self-control, but I finally managed it.
"It seems like you guys really need to learn the proper laws of this dungeon. It’s so ridiculous, everyone’s so stupid." I started to walk toward them slowly, playing with the tip of my sword. "This sword so wanted to be inside them, but it would need to wait a bit longer. Wait, did I say that out loud? Sorry." I saw them take another step back, this time even the leader.
"Boss, this doesn’t feel right. I don’t think he’s good in the head." That made my eye twitch a bit. I never liked when people said that about me. I don’t understand why looking for treasure is such a bad thing. Everyone is always calling me crazy, especially when they try to take what I’ve found. So many of my treasures were stolen until I got strong enough to fight back.
"I don’t know if you guys know this, but you could actually appeal and get your bad quest rewards removed if a reasonable cause is found for killing. You threatening me to take my things, finding me after our first meeting—well, that's good enough. But before we get to fighting, let me show you something awesome."
"You see, I have this friend of mine, she likes to make things that are questionable at best. She likes ritual and blood, and well, you were kind enough to give me some of yours." I saw the boss realize, and his free hand moved to his neck. Then I pulled out the piece of paper. "This won’t kill you immediately, but well, how about I just show you?"
He yelled "No!" and the others started to rush me as well, but I had learned some tricks from the madmen that liked to play with fire, and the simple application of one of my skill made my fingertips burst into flames, setting the paper on fire. The boss, as they called him, fell to his knees, clutching his heart and neck. It was like they were burning, filling the alley with the smell of burning flesh.
The person from the back made it to me first, using multiple skills to try to stab his knives into my back, only for them to slide off my armor. I had turned around, and he looked up at me, not understanding what had happened.
One strike from my sword cut through his armor, nearly bisecting him. I tucked under the strike aimed at my head from the shield user, and honestly, I don’t know why they brought a bow user. It would be hard for him to get a clean shot, even if I wasn’t positioning myself in a way that made it impossible for him to shoot me.
Another sword strike came my way that I parried moving into my own attack afterwards targeting the shield user. I did an overhead strike, and he blocked with his shield, except right before my sword hit, I changed it into a rapier. The tip of my sword was now on the edge of his shield, and I simply had to extend my arm forward and up. I used a few skills to make the attack even stronger.
The shield dropped first, revealing that I had pierced him through his eye. He was wearing a good helmet, but it still had holes in it so he could see. His body dropped next, and I had to duck so the arrow wouldn’t hit me.
The bow user was actually good, and I had to rapidly dodge and use my armor to block the next four arrows that came extremely fast. Now, however, he needed to shoot arrows one at a time, as he couldn’t set them up properly in his hand to do the same rapid shooting as before.
I could have chased him as he kept his distance, but instead, I transformed my sword into a large two-handed one and simply threw it like a spear. He didn’t expect that, and there wasn’t much room to dodge. I didn’t manage to fatally wound him, but it seemed like he was willing to let his comrades die if he could get the prize, as he chased after the sword.
He was so fixated on it that he didn’t notice the throwing knives I tossed towards him, and just before he touched the sword, I made it disappear and then appear in my hand. He looked back at me, seeing the sword, and only then noticed the knives. Now there was only one still alive, and that was their boss.
"I would save you if I could, but the spell will do its work eventually. You might think that I’m lying, but I actually mean it—I would save you if I could because otherwise, I would actually get a real penalty. I would still need to hide for a couple of days, which is inconvenient but not a problem."
He couldn’t say anything back to me. I could see the anger in his eyes, and that was enough. It took him about 15 minutes to die, after which I pulled out a cloak and hid myself in one of the crevices in the roof.
People could sense my general location if they were hunting for killers, so I just needed to stay incredibly still and wait out the few days it would take to get rid of these negative quest rewards. Hopefully, it will take less time, but in my experience, it usually takes two or three days.
This time it took nearly four days, and I was starting to get a little bit worried, but perhaps the dungeon was a bit busier. Whatever the case, I was now free of those markers, and oh boy, did some people want to kill me when I finally revealed myself. Their faces when they realized they couldn’t kill me anymore were hilarious, but I didn't have time to linger as I was already a bit late.
I reached the floor guardian's entrance and was stopped by the guards there. "That group is next, I will not have line cutters." I was a bit confused and looked toward the people who were waiting. Weren't they supposed to go after me?
"I think you misunderstood, here are my credentials. I’m supposed to be running the floor guardian right now."
He looked at me like I was stupid. "Son, there’s only 20 minutes left of your two hours, and you’re going in? There’s no way you’re going to finish in time, so..." I stopped him from speaking by raising one of my fingers.
"That is not for you to decide, and if I go over my time, I will then be punished. So, step aside. Runner guild, could you please set up the fastest clear timer? I am in a little bit of a hurry."
They, of course, recognized me immediately and set up the device. It will detect when someone enters the room and when they leave it, and will display the time it took between those events, which would be put into the leaderboards if the time was short enough.
I rushed in, and the doors closed behind me. The boss appeared, and it looked glorious. The six legs were powerful and made the creature move surprisingly nimbly. It had a horizontal horn with spikes on it, and I had no illusions about how strong and devastating a charge with that horn could be.
I rushed towards it. Its response was exactly the same as it had been in the reports I read, as it started to charge towards me as well. I continued to rush towards it while pulling out my sword until I saw an air bubble appear in front of the floor guardian. That meant it had activated its charging skill.
In the guide, it recommends moving to the sides as it had a hard time changing direction now. Instead, I skidded to a halt, changed my short sword to the largest great sword I had access to, with half of its blade actually not sharp so I could hold on to it, and readied myself for the madness I was about to do.
A few had tried to take the charge with long spears, but their shafts had broken, or they simply couldn't get past the horn and were killed in the process. I lowered the sword exactly like someone would do if they were hunting large animals in the wild.
My right leg was on the pommel, holding it steady on the ground. I was in a crouching position, holding and aiming the point of the sword so it would go deep into the floor guardian and destroy its heart.
Near where the sharp blade stopped, there were protrusions to the left and right so that it simply wouldn't skewer itself completely and still kill me. It should be enough to divert the charge if I did things correctly. Now it was a waiting game, but I didn’t need to wait long, although the seconds seemed to go by so slowly.
What I saw was some sort of understanding in the creature’s eyes, but it also knew that if I tried to swerve away, it would give me an even better opportunity to kill it. So we both knew this came down to the strength of my sword and the strength of its horn. Nothing else mattered at this moment. My breathing got steadier as I focused on this moment.
It did a last-moment adjustment of its horn to make it so that my blade would be pushed upwards, but I was waiting for something like that and corrected it just before its horn hit the tip of the blade.
My sword couldn’t cut through it entirely, but it left a large furrow. Its horn, instead of pushing my sword upwards, now pushed it downwards directly near its throat. It couldn't stop, and while my sword flexed just a bit, it pierced through its tough, skill-enhanced hide and continued onwards.
It hit the sword's protrusions after the sword had pierced seven feet into it, destroying so much, and because my aim was true, I destroyed its heart. The sword almost buckled as it took the whole weight of the beast, but I used my own strength to help the sword out and to push the creature to the side so its charge would miss me. Its entire body arched about a foot off the ground before it fell down again, now dead, me still alive, and my sword still completely fine.
My heart was pounding so strongly, but I quickly gathered the loot and started to rush out of the room. "I thank you for the challenge you provided. It was a truly harrowing experience."
As soon as I reached out of the room, I saw the timer stop at 58 seconds. That was the first spot, and I had about a minute to spare. I saw the nod that the runner's guild personnel gave me, meaning I could now leave for the next floor.
I didn’t miss the absolute shocked looks everyone else was giving me, but they didn’t matter right now. It was time to start exploring the next floor and hopefully, I would have a chance to get in contact with a clan that could give me information about hideouts if they were real.
Comments
ItWasIDIO!!
Cool read another series where that happened & since yours is similar I would say that the effect in that one should happen here since it does happen but on a bigger scale unbeatable veteran bosses (also appreciate the replies but I mostly comment into the void for fun & if I really enjoy a chapter on patreon feel free to ignore while I binge)
Apinsig
not really their memories are a snapshot of a certain but do get updated sometimes
ItWasIDIO!!
Question do the bosses get brought back with memories?
Apinsig
There is still much to write about in this story and there is an opponent after the diamond ranks but I will not be writing this story forever. It will have an end.
Lampshade Sr.
I still think the story is amazing, and very interesting, I am just scared because I’ve seen writers stop writing dungeon stories because they don’t find them interesting to write about after a while, and I don’t want that to happen to this story because I really enjoy it.
Lampshade Sr.
I think once he reaches platinum rank and starts up a diamond farm he’ll basically become untouchable so there needs to be a new element of danger to keep the story interesting. Perhaps a coalition of races against the dungeon because someone snitched about the playrooms or some other reason like we finally meet the leaders of the diamond ranks. However, I feel the story will begin to stagnate without a proper threat.
Gilhe
Ah speedrunners. A...different... breed of gamers
Robert
all my favourite people are from the runners guild they don't try and rob each other and they are all about the challenge , if all these bad guys just worked on their craft rather than picking on a guy who was obviously a hard core badass like who is powerful enough to have a legendary sword and go round on their own it was obviously gonna end like this , he needs to make friends with Carl's team
