CH 166

Episode 166 – First Battle in the Dungeon

I was walking along the dark, narrow confines of the Dungeon when I suddenly sensed a presence and drew my sword. As I gazed steadily in the direction of the presence, a party of adventurers eventually appeared. The party of adventurers took a passing glance at me before walking off in another direction.

After that, I ran into a party of adventurers three times in a similar fashion.

Having watched the projections, I knew that the odds of encountering adventurers were higher than the odds of encountering a monster on the first layer. It was still early in the morning, but I had already run into three adventurer parties. As stated in the Beginner’s Course in the book, the first thing to learn was how to determine between adventurers and monsters.

If you assumed that the next ones to show up were adventurers and let your guard down, it could spell your end. You’d be attacked by a monster and lose your life just like that.

I gripped my sword tightly as I walked forward, determined to be cautious of every presence that approached, when I suddenly detected something ahead of me again. I stopped and waited intently… when suddenly I saw a hulking red-bodied figure wielding an iron club appear before me.

An Ogre.

It was a fairly low probability, but an Ogre could appear on the 1st layer of the Landaust Dungeon. These Ogres were one of the reasons why many adventurers were stuck on the shallow layers. Many adventurer parties seemed to have a hard time against the Ogre, which could release powerful blows from its large, inhuman body and were equipped with Dungeon-specific weapons.

This time, it was wielding an iron club, which was one of the easier weapons to fight against, but I still had to be very careful not to let it land a heavy blow on me. As far as I had seen in the projections, they were pretty much on the same level of strength as the Ogres I had fought in Seykoll, so it should be fine. Either way, I wasn’t going to get careless while slaying it.

Using the sword stance that Kirty had taught me in combination with the sword-swinging style that Edward had taught me, I slashed at the unprepared Ogre. Judging by the balance between its left and right sides and the hand it was holding its weapon with, this Ogre was left-handed.

As long as I’m aware of that… whoever makes the first move wins.

Reminding myself to be conscious of keeping my swings small and sharp, I aimed the slash at the upper arm of the Ogre’s left hand.

""

―Shhhkk!

Without feinting, I swung my steel sword out at top speed and cleaved deeply into the Ogre’s upper arm as planned. It wasn’t deep enough to bisect the Ogre in the end, but the Ogre reeled backwards at my sudden blow and took a few steps back.

As the Ogre saw its blood dripped down the iron club and onto the ground, it turned its gaze towards me and checked its grip. But when it realized its left hand wasn’t strong enough to grip the club, it switched the club over to its right hand. With a strange roar that sounded more like a groan, the Ogre took its turn to attack.

‘When the red-bodied Ogre roars, it’ll attack.’

The impact of the blow looked to be so strong to the point that I considered avoiding it for a second, but… this was a one-handed swing, and it wasn’t even using its dominant arm. Its movements were awkward, and its left arm was sagging uselessly by its side, so it wasn’t well-balanced. It looked like it was trying to end things in one blow since its swing was unnecessarily large, but that meant that swing was full of gaps.

This was a move that was not taught by Edward but was instead drilled into me by Kirty… I swung out my sword in harmony with the Ogre’s movements. Using the force of the Ogre against itself, my sword ripped the Ogre from its left shoulder diagonally down to its right hip. The Ogre pitched forward, falling face first, dead before it even hit the ground.

Alright! The first battle went well.

I was a little nervous, but I was able to proceed with the battle as I had wanted. After exhaling deeply, I turned and saw that the Ogre’s corpse was slowly turning into ashes, and before long it disappeared as if it had never existed. This was a phenomenon unique to Dungeons, and anything that met its end in a Dungeon would turn into ashes and disappear just like this. The same was true for adventurers, which was why the receptionist lady told me earlier that, ‘if you are not seen in the Dungeon videos for a month and don’t return, you will be considered among the deceased’. In other words, regardless of whether one was human or not, upon death anyone would also be similarly reduced to ashes inside the Dungeon.

When I read about this in the book, I shuddered intensely at the unspeakable horror of this fact. But now that I had seen it firsthand, it was actually a lot better than leaving behind a corpse. In addition, there were some items that could be collected from the ashes of monsters, which were commonly referred to as ‘drops’.

There were no item drops this time, but if there were, they would be left among the ashen remains of the monsters. Some of the drops were useful, and apparently there were even ‘rare drops’, which were different from regular drops. The book said that this was a special characteristic of Dungeons, and aside from treasure chests, parties would sometimes continue to clear the Dungeon for the rare drops.

After thinking for a while, I walked onward, putting the ashy remains of the fallen Ogre past me. Today, my goal was to collect plants and drops exclusive to the Dungeon. After that, I wanted to try going to the 2nd layer… and maybe find a treasure chest if I could.

Dreaming of those treasure chests, which were the embodiment of appeal, I continued forward with my sights set on the 2nd layer.