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nCh. 59: Considering During Battle

nLoren and his group finally ran into monsters after they climbed down to the second floor.

nIn the end, they found the stairs to the second floor before they encountered any monsters, but they ran into four goblins in a small room that they stepped in a short distance from the stairs.

nAin and his party immediately prepared to fight them.

nTheir speed was one of those who had trained quite a bit, and Loren, who didn’t expect much of them, thought it would be okay to give them a pa.s.sing grade.

nHe then looked towards the goblins in front of them.

nThey were monsters that had given him a hard time in an ancient ruin that sp.a.w.ned them endlessly, but if they didn’t have the numbers, they were normal and weak in general.

nBut Loren’s brows furrowed at the goblins that they encountered since seemed even weaker than the ones he imagined were weak.

nIf he didn’t learn that the strength of the monsters depended on things like the scale of the dungeon, he would’ve thought that the goblins were struck with some illness, since their hands were trembling, trying to hold up their shabby daggers and shields.

nAs Loren decided that it wouldn’t even be a match against these monsters, Ain and Cloud, who were the frontline, raised their weapons and yelled.

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nBut there was one that attacked before they even moved.

nIt was the magician, Feim.

nOf course, Loren would’ve felt disgusted if she used the one spell she could use in this situation, but Feim didn’t use a spell neither the staff in her left hand. But instead she hung the lantern on her staff and pulled out a dart from her robe pocket with her right hand.

nThe dart that shot out from her hand sunk itself into the shoulders of one of the goblins.

nBut the dart’s needle wasn’t that long.

nA goblin’s skin was quite thick and had the defensive capabilities of leather armor, so Loren didn’t think that a dart that barely penetrated it would even make it flinch.

nBut in contrary to his expectation, the goblin that got hit by the dart dropped its weapons and started rolling on the floor, clutching the area where the dart hit it.

n‘Yes! It’s working!”

n“That’s pretty nasty. The needle was dipped in poison.”

nLapis watched Feim, who raised her fist, with half opened eyes.

nLoren wondered whose thoughts were more nasty. Feim’s, who had thought of using poison, or Lapis, who immediately saw through the poison, but his thoughts were blown away by the sound of sword hitting against sword.

nWhen he looked over, he saw that Ain and Cloud had started fighting the goblins, and Ain had taken on two of them since he had a shield, and Cloud was handling the last one.

nAin’s fighting style was very pa.s.sive.

nHe used both this sword and his shield defensively, and didn’t seem like he was trying to deal damage to his opponents.

nBut from the perspective of keeping the aggro of the two goblins, he was doing his job as the front line.

nCloud was using his speed to apply blow after blow.

nEstocs specialized in thrusting and stabbing, so they weren’t meant for swinging and clashing with other weapons.

nThat was why you would try to get under your opponent’s guard and be constantly attacking, but in this case, the goblin was so weak it could not keep up with Cloud’s movements.

nBut even so, it tried to block Cloud’s attacks with its shield and dagger, then put in a counter, but Cloud didn’t go far in, but instead attacked then retreated immediately so the goblin’s attacks couldn’t reach him.

nBut to Loren, Cloud’s way of fighting, continually dealing small cuts to a weakened goblin, just looked like he was playing with it, and wasn’t the most pleasant thing to watch.

n“Al! Now’s your chance! I’ll hold it down so hit it!”

n“Ehhhh! It’s still moving though!”

n“That’s why you have to make sure it doesn’t move anymore!”

nHolding his mace with both hands, Al slowly walked closer to the goblin that Feim had immobilized, while Feim put her foot on the goblin’s back to keep it from moving.

n“Hurry up! The poison isn’t that strong!”

n“Ugh…Okay…”

nAl swung the mace in his hands with tears in his eyes.

nThe goblin that Feim was pinning down squirmed and struggled to escape, but Feim stomped down with more force, not letting it go.

n“Take this!”

nWith a yell that sounded a bit disheartened, the mace was swung down, aimed at the goblin’s head, but it missed and hit its back around the scapula with a blunt sound, and the goblin cried out in pain.

n“Haaa!”

nThe next blow hit the goblin’s arm that it raised to cover its head and it bent in a weird direction.

nAs the goblin’s cries got even louder, Al wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked at his mace, confused.

n“Why isn’t it hitting?”

n“Well, of course it wouldn’t hit since you’re closing your eyes as you swing it down…”

nLoren unthinkingly said so out loud.

nAs a proctor, he wasn’t supposed to help them unless they asked for it, but he felt that Al might hit Feim this kept going on. Even if it didn’t happen, he felt sorry for the goblin, not being able to be released from its misery.

n“But if I swing down with my eyes open, I’ll see things that I don’t want to when it hits…”

n“Then don’t. Why did you even become an adventurer? Honestly…”

nAs Loren started yelling, Lapis wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging him from behind so he couldn’t grab Al.

nAl, who was looking at Loren in confusion, remembered that the goblin was still alive, and swung his mace down again.

n“Lapis, why’d you stop me?”

n“I understand how you feel, but you’ve got to keep it in. It’s beyond the job of a proctor, and this exam is most likely meant to teach them these things.”

n“But still…”

n“Yes, I didn’t know it would be this bad as well. They say it’s the exam for graduating, but there must be a wide range for quality among the graduates.”

nA complaining look appeared on Loren’s face for a while, but he eventually clicked his tongue and patted Lapis, who was still hugging him, on the head.

nHe meant that it was okay for her to let go now, but Lapis didn’t let go of his waist.

n“Hey, Lapis?”

n“Loren, your waist is a lot thinner than I thought.”

n“Don’t worry, it’s still thicker than yours. Anyways, so this dungeon is school property because of that too?”

nWhen Loren asked, Lapis let go of his waist with a questioning look on her face.

n“The dungeon sp.a.w.ned the goblins, right?”

n“Yes, since there isn’t anything that would let monsters in from the outside.”

n“So that means those weak looking goblins were sp.a.w.ned by the dungeon for the sake of the exam, right?”

nAt Loren’s words, Lapis turned towards Ain and the other students.

nAin, who still wasn’t going on the offensive, was still dealing with two goblins, and Cloud was still giving light cuts to the goblin he was against as well.

nThe goblin that Al and Feim were trying to kill was still struggling under Feim’s foot due to Al’s accuracy being so bad, and Feim was trying to stick another dart into its back.

n“Loren, it’s true that the strength of the monsters change depending on the scale of the dungeon, but dungeons don’t sp.a.w.n weakened monsters on purpose, you know?”

n“But…”

n“Think about it. If you were to sp.a.w.n weakened monsters, why not just sp.a.w.n ordinary monsters that are just that weak. Why would you go through the trouble of sp.a.w.ning them in a weakened state?”

n“Don’t ask me something I can’t answer.”

nLoren gave up, knowing that there was no way he would know something Lapis didn’t.

nLapis folded her arms in front of her chest and frowned at Ain and the others, who were still fighting.

n“Since you say that the monsters are weakened, they must be weakened. Then the problem is what is causing it.”

nJust in case, Loren turned his focus to Shayna and asked her if it was her doing.

nHe thought maybe her energy drain weakened the goblins, but Shayna told him it wasn’t her.

n“I don’t believe the dungeon would do something inefficient like sp.a.w.ning monsters in a weakened state. Then there would be two possibilities.”

n“What’s the first one?”

n“They were somehow weakened after they were sp.a.w.ned.”

n“Second one?”

n“The possibility that the sp.a.w.n system is malfunctioning.”

n“So, you don’t know which one the cause is?”

n“There’s not enough information.”

nLoren sighed, because either way, it meant that there was something going on in the dungeon.

nHe’d rather have had another one of Shayna’s pranks as the cause, than have trouble come his way, but that wasn’t a possibility anymore since he had already asked her.

n“I only smell trouble…”

n“I would want to head back as well if it wasn’t for a part of my body being down here…but then that would mean that on top of failing the job, we would have to pay a penalty, so that’s a problem as well.”

n“Just out of curiosity, how much would the penalty be?”

n“Five times the reward. Can you pay that Loren?”

n“You know what my wallet is like right now, right?”

nOf course, there was no way Loren could pay the penalty with what he had in his wallet.

nHe didn’t know what disasters would await him if he failed to pay the penalty, but he knew that it wouldn’t be something to look forward to.

n“I won’t blame you if you decide to leave on your own, you know?”

nLoren guessed that Lapis would be able to pay the penalty without difficulty.

nLapis gave him a troubled laugh, as if that were true.

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n“Yeah, right. We accepted this job because I wanted to in the first place.”

n“If you say so.”

nAfter a countless number of attempts, Al’s mace finally hit the goblin’s head.

nThe goblin stopped moving, as the blow finally killed it.

nMonsters sp.a.w.ned by the dungeon would be absorbed by it, leaving behind a part of its body as material, but nothing was left behind when the goblin disappeared.

n“Huh? Why?”

n“Interesting. I guess there are times when they don’t leave behind materials.”

nAl looked around, while Feim seemed interested at the unexpected result.

nBehind them, Cloud finally killed the goblin he was fighting and ran towards Ain, who was still holding off two of them.

nThe goblin that Cloud killed sank into the ground and disappeared, but nothing was left behind yet again.

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