These battles felt like he was revisiting schoolwork.
The notion sounded funny, but that’s what Jongryeo ended up thinking, totally out of the blue.
During the past two hours of hunting inside the dungeon, he met four different types of monsters.
Knights, Mages, Assassins, and Archers.
“Is it Stealth this time?”
An assassin-type suddenly vanished from his senses.
Jongryeo didn’t panic and extended his ‘Perception’ to its fullest. And soon enough, picked up on the presence sneaking up on him from behind.
Swish!
Jongryeo powerfully smacked away the assassin’s dagger with his trusty ‘Vortex Vanquisher’, and seizing the opening created as the monster was pushed back, thrust forward in a deadly and accurate attack of his own.
The blade accurately landed in the middle of the target’s chest.
Stab!
[You defeated the assassin.]
[Level up!]
The assassin received a fatal wound and turned into a wisp of black smoke before disappearing from his view with nary a scream.
Plop.
And where it once stood, only the leather clothes it used to wear remained.
‘Why are they all humanoid-type monsters, anyway?’
Every time he ‘killed’ them, he felt as if….
Jongryeo slowly shook his head.
One nice thing here was that he couldn’t see the monsters’ faces; knights wore helmets, assassins, and archers used deep hoods, and mages used hats attached to their robes to hide most of their faces.
Jongryeo turned around to continue on his journey.
But then!
A flash of blinding light exploded right in front of his eyes. A mage had hidden itself and quietly completed a light magic spell.
Blast!!
An ear-splitting explosion occurred next.
However, Jongryeo was already well behind the mage by the time that happened.
“…..!!”
The mage sensed his presence behind it and flinched grandly as he hurriedly recited another chant. Too bad, Jongryeo didn’t miss this opening and swung his spear diagonally.
The mage, too, turned into a wisp of smoke and disappeared.
Plop.
Jongryeo glared down at the ownerless robe on the ground and stored the dagger back in the Inventory.
‘I got hit by one of those, way back when I got too careless.’
The thing was, he was already ready to react as soon as he began sensing Mana gathering around in a single point.
Jongryeo wasn’t dumb enough to get hit by a similar magic to that dead guy’s.
This was one of the reasons why he thought that all these battles were like him studying and revisiting his past fights.
‘That’s not all, is it?’
In order to defeat different types of monsters, he needed different Stats.
For knights, it was Strength. For assassins, Perception. Archers, Agility. And finally, for mages, it was Stamina.
The whole thing was set up in a way that if any of the corresponding Stats weren’t high enough, he’d have a real hard time trying to deal with the individual monsters.
If his Strength was lacking, then he wouldn’t have been able to cause enough damage to the knights, and if his Perception was too low, he’d have gone through hell in order to locate the assassins.
‘Me raising Stats evenly has really paid off dividends here.’
His Intelligence Stat was still on the low side, but all he had to do there was to economise his MP usage. That was all.
[‘Item: Leather Pouch’ has been opened.]
[‘20,000 Gold’, and ‘Canteen Containing Lukewarm Water’ are inside.]
[‘20,000 Gold’, and ‘Canteen Containing Lukewarm Water’ have been acquired.]
Jongryeo summoned that canteen as soon as it showed up in his Inventory and took several gulps.
“Fuu….”
His fatigue was piling up noticeably now.
‘Just how far am I supposed to go here?’
Could there be no end to this place?
Jongryeo put the empty canteen down on the ground and placed his hands on his hips. It had been over three hours already since he entered this dungeon. Both his body and mind were getting fatigued now.
‘….Should I take a short break?’
Jongryeo sat down and leaned against the cave wall.
‘Status Window.’
_________________________________________
[Fatigue: 66]
_________________________________________
The ‘Fatigue’ Stat had sneaked up to a dangerous level; above 70, his body and mind would start to get negatively affected.
He needed to take a short nap and decrease that Stat right away.
Jongryeo leaned his head against the wall. Sleepiness came over him almost instantly.
He was so tired that, even when in an environment as dangerous as this place, he didn’t need a lot of effort to fall asleep.
However…
Swish-!
He heard the sharp whistle of air parting ways!
Time slowed down, and Jongryeo
accurately snatched the flying arrow with his hand.
Grab!
Jongryeo’s eyes opened up.
He saw an archer nocking another arrow from some distance away.
‘So, they wouldn’t let me rest, is it?’
Jongryeo summoned the Vortex Vanquisher once more and stood back up.
____________
Crunch!
One single punch caused the knight’s breastplate to crack and cave in; the lifeless monster slowly slid to the ground in between Jongryeo’s stretched fist and the wall.
It didn’t move again as it lay sprawled on the ground.
[You defeated the knight.]
[Level up!]
Although it was quite unfortunate that his condition didn’t recover, his levels continued to rise up steadily as he fought more and more battles.
Jongryeo looked down on his slightly-skinned fist and clicked his tongue.
Only a short break would’ve taken care of such a small wound by now.
However, these abominable monsters didn’t give him a moment to rest.
Still, he earned quite a lot in the meantime.
[Equipped items]
Emblem of Severed Fate (A)
Archaic Petra (A)
Noblesse Oblige (B)
Tenacity of the Millelith (A)
General’s Ancient Helm (A)
Other useful things he found along the way were now all safely tucked away in his Inventory.
‘It’d been nicer if I found a weapon, though….’
What would this guy give me now?
Jongryeo reached out towards the fallen knight and the flickering light coming off from it.
[Item: Orichalceous Time-Dial]
Rarity: A
Type: Artifact
HP: +269
ATK: +90
DEF: +100
Energy Recharge: +24.9%
‘Ohhh….’
With a bright smile, Jongryeo quickly ‘acquired’ the Orichalceous Time-Dial and equipped it immediately.
With this, he now equipped 3 sets of Tenacity of the Millelith. Artifacts items have different Set Bonuses depending on how many are of that set are equipped on.
“Let’s see.”
[2 Piece: HP +20%]
The amount of HP he has now could be considered tanky. He should equip items that increase his ATK stats as well.
[CRIT RATE: +24.5%]
[Physical DMG Bonus: +50%]
‘Nice.’
Jongryeo raises his head to look at the far side of the passageway.
Finally.
The torchlight revealed the end of the road.
And that end was blocked off by a huge castle gate.
It was quite rare to see the boss room with a door like that. Naturally, he recalled the dual dungeon. No one was adequately prepared back then, and because of that, the losses incurred were great.
However, it was different now.
Jongryeo took a look behind him, at the passage he had been walking on to get here.
‘It took me six hours to get here, too….’
His level was now 45, and he was kitted out in some good items as well.
He was ready.
He wouldn’t have minded taking a small break and recovering some of his spent stamina, but whenever he tried to do that, monsters always managed to appear with the perfect sense of timing to disrupt his sleep.
He couldn’t afford to summon more monsters and waste his energy that way.
[HP: 5511/8330]
[MP: 660/790]
[Fatigue: 40]
‘I gotta win with this.’
Finishing up with confirming his condition for the last time, Jongryeo reached out and grasped the handles of the doors.
Creak, creaaaakkk-!
The heavy-looking doors slid open rather smoothly, as if there was some sort of an unseen mechanism.
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