Chapter 173 - Return

"You lost," said Yuki as he looked up at the goblin which had turned around to see what Yuki was talking about. While to the goblins, It just seemed like Yuki had drank a speed boost potion then began to run around in random circles, he had been putting together his plan. Once Yuki had realized that a battle of pure strength would be extremely difficult to win due to the goblins having gained new strength from the dungeon system, however, to make his situation worse, he didn't have much time to clear the stage. As such, he would either have to somehow clear the dungeon stage very quickly or give up and redo the stage another day which would place him in an endless cycle of retrying stage 2.

If Yuki were to give up and return another day, not only would he have to face the remaining goblins at their full strength but also the ones he had killed while they were weaker. It was now or never. Yuki didn't have the option of turning back. So, Yuki came up with a sneaky plan to end the lives of all the remaining goblins all in one shot. 

More specifically, Yuki had used his ability to create a concentrated flame string which would be as hard as steel but also sticky like gum. In doing so, Yuki was left with a barely visible piece of string which he stuck on all the goblins and the surrounding trees. Since the goblins were so busy mocking and laughing at Yuki, they didn't realize what Yuki had been actually doing. In turn, their arrogance became their downfall. However, who could blame a group of mindless creatures which only had a blade to think with. 

Right after Yuki snapped his fingers, all the surrounding nearby trees began to get cut as the string which Yuki had created wrapped around the bodies of the goblins like a snake. 

"This is the end. You can give it up now. There's no way I'll be letting you escape. Even though I have my moments of arrogance. I would have to be insane to let a single one of you live. Goodbye," said Yuki as he snapped his fingers once more as the flames combusted, in turn incinerating each and every single one of the remaining goblins. However, in the moment before the explosion went off, one of the goblins had broken free of the string's grasp. Even so, almost all its body was blown into smithereens. All that remained of it was its hand with a dagger which flew in the air due to the pressure of the explosion and fell towards Yuki's face. 

"I guess this is a fitting conclusion. In the end, no matter how hard you fight, you'll never reach me," said Yuki as he stepped back, which made it so that the hand with the blade wouldn't have touched him. While it would've been heroic and redeeming for Yuki to allow the blade to slice his eye lid so that the goblins would feel like they did something even after they died, Yuki didn't care. Even though he could've used a full status recovery potion to heal the wound right after, Yuki chose to purposely ridicule the monsters even though they were dead. 

Of course, no one could judge Yuki because he wasn't obligated to do anything so as to please others. Yuki neither picked the option of most efficiency or of that which aligned with many people's moral compass. All that mattered was what he felt at the time and if he would derive joy from doing something. 

"Well, at least that's over. I should probably save at this stage and head back to the kingdom. It's probably close to morning by now," said Yuki as he headed towards the stage tunnel so he could save his progress in the 3rd dungeon. 

"That only leaves me with 8 stages to clear right? Well, all I have to do is basically repeat what I've done so far in this dungeon 4 more times and it'll be over," Yuki said as he tried to divide the time he would spend in the dungeon so it would seem less of a gruelling task than it actually was. 

[+140000 exp]

[Player: Yuki Kaito]

[Level 21: 928500/10 million]

As Yuki continued to walk towards the dungeon tunnel so he could save his progress, he was stopped by a falling item from a stage ceiling. As he expected, it was a regular silver dagger. What else would a stage such as this offer to him. Seeing the blade, Yuki double tapped on the weapon as he always enjoyed looking at the stats and description of the items he received from the dungeon stages. 

[Item drop: Goblin's Dagger]

[Rank: C]

[Attack: 220]

[Description: Power: A regular blade however when the user of the blade is 1/10 of theirs. max HP, special skill gets activated. Special skill: Extend. Power: Allows the blade to stretch out to land a blow if the initial attack misses its target. The goblin race is by far one of the weakest. However, the one reason the continue to survive is due to their evolutionary pattern. With each obstacle they face, they develop their next generation genetically to overcome the things which they couldn't. As such, they can adapt to any and all environments if given the right amount of time. More than anything, the goblins share many things in common with humans. Although not modern age humans, they resemble those of the ones from the stone age. If they were more prominent in that type of environment, humans would be considered the monsters while the goblins attain the knowledge they need. Unfortunately for them, they were born much after the humans and are now purposely hunted so they don't develop.]

"What a group of losers. Sucks of them I guess," said Yuki as he opened his inventory and placed all the items he had taken out of his inventory and received from the stage back into his inventory. 

Once Yuki reached the stage tunnel, he had managed to save his progress so far in the dungeon. 

[Stage two: Complete]

[Save point reached]

[If you would like to move to the 3rd stage of the dungeon, please step forward]

[Stage 3 difficulty: level 12]

"A raid party member would like to exit the dungeon!" Yuki said out loud.

"Which party member would like to exit?" the system asked.

"Player: Yuki Kaito," Yuki replied.

"Save point has been reached, exp will not be taken away once the player exits. Press 'Confirm' to finish the process," the system said.

In front of Yuki was a large rectangular blue projection which said "Confirm", beside it was a red projection button which could be pressed to cancel the transitional process. 

Yuki pressed the "Confirm button" and was teleported outside the dungeon with a blink of an eye.

"Hey Zero. I'm done for the day. Teleport me back to the kingdom," said Yuki. 

"Of course," Zero replied as he teleported Yuki back to the house in the kingdom which he was supposed to be secretly imprisoned in. 

When Yuki had returned home, he was on the floor since that was where his necklace was. Even though it was awkward for him to get up, he stood up from the ground and headed upstairs to the room which he claimed on his own. While there were 2 other rooms in the house as well, Yuki chose to have them act as guest rooms even though he doubted that he'd ever have guests over. 

"I feel like I'm dead. I can't keep going on like this," said Yuki in an exhausted voice as he sat on the bed which his summon had bought for him. 

[Open inventory]

Yuki pulled out a full status recovery potion along with a sleep deprivation cure potion and drank them both at once so he could be back to being as good as new. He needed to look normal and not like he had basically fought a war on his own. 

"Never mind, I don't even feel the least bit tired. I feel like I can clear another stage or two on my own," said Yuki as he took out new clothes from his inventory as the ones he had taken to the dungeon were torn and dirty. 

"At this rate, I'm going to have to buy every piece of clothing that each store in the kingdom has to offer. It would be so much simpler to just clear the whole dungeon in one outfit then worry about new clothes once I finish it. Instead, now I have to waste 10 times as more cloths as I would've had to do if I didn't have to return to the kingdom so often," said Yuki as he complained to himself  while putting on his plain white t-shirt and black trousers since he was going to go to meet with his new boss for his job. 

"It's going to be construction work so my clothing shouldn't really matter," said Yuki as he put his hair in a man bun and headed out of his house ready for work.