Chapter 23
#23. Tower of Trials 3rd Floor
I dodged the spear thrust coming straight at me and swung my shield.
-BANG!
I followed up by swinging my sword at the lizardman, who was reeling from the heavy blow.
But even while staggering, the lizardman accurately whipped its tail around and struck my ankle.
Losing my balance made my attack miss, and in that gap the lizardman’s spear haft, now back under control, lashed out and smacked me.
-Smack!
The haft wasn’t made of a hard material, so the damage wasn’t that severe, but it hit me squarely in the temple and my vision wavered for a moment.
Seizing the opening, the lizardman thrust its spear once more. It was incredibly fast at switching from a swing to a stab.
I thrust out my foot and kicked the lizardman’s knee back.
-Crack.
With the sound of something snapping, the lizardman staggered, and the slightly raised position of its neck dropped to the perfect height.
I immediately thrust my sword toward its neck. But the lizardman dodged it with a tilt of its head, then swung its leg back the other way.
Though it was the leg with a ruined knee joint, the low kick whipping in like a lash and slamming into my thigh still had considerable force.
“Ghk.”
I saw the leg swing at me, but I had no idea how to block or dodge it, so I took the hit head-on. Damn it.
I let go of the sword I had thrust out, grabbed the lizardman’s shoulder, yanked it toward me, and smashed its face with my shield.
Thwack. It was a solid sound, but it wasn’t a critical hit. At the same time, the lizardman readjusted its spear, gripping it shorter, and thrust at my abdomen.
Blocking it would be a bad call timing-wise. After slamming its face with my shield, I don’t have room to dodge at close range.
“Tsk.”
I shoved the lizardman back with all my strength and kicked off the ground to put distance between us.
Even after taking two direct hits from my shield to the face, the lizardman still looked perfectly fine.
**
The main monster in the Tower of Trials 3rd Floor area is, as you can see, the lizardman.
The 3rd Floor area has a very different atmosphere from Floors 1 and 2; the entire map is a swamp where the lizardman tribe has settled.
There aren’t many safe zones here, and the village is very small. It’s a field with a huge monster spawn area, but the number of enemies that appear is low.
And because there are so few of them, each and every lizardman that appears is an extremely formidable fighter.
Normally you’d need a party of at least three to gang up on these monsters, but as you can see, I’m currently in a glorious one-on-one duel.
Of course, my stats and equipment are overwhelmingly stronger than those of other challengers on the same floor, so under normal circumstances there was no way I’d be struggling like this.
“This is rough.”
I muttered softly and looked down at the sword and shield in my hands.
[+5 Old Steel Straight Sword]
Attack Power +25 (Slash)
Critical Damage: x1.8
Durability 250/250
Enhancement Attempts Remaining: 0
[+5 Grimy Round Shield]
Defense +15
Toughness +3
Durability 300/300
Enhancement Attempts Remaining: 0
A trash item with less than a quarter of the performance of my usual gear.
Even challengers on the first floor of other towers wouldn’t use gear like this unless they were really hard up.
It’s been enhanced to +5 in its own way, but all of it is just [Durability] enhancement, so the actual performance is worse than even shop-bought gear.
I’m currently in a state where I’ve swapped out every item that had been a key part of my build for junk gear.
After the crisis in the 2nd Floor boss fight, I realized how fundamentally lacking my skill was.
To make up for that, I’m deliberately lowering my stats and fighting under self-imposed restrictions.
If I equip my original gear right now, I’d crush that lizardman in no time.
Of course, thanks to my very high level and passive skills for this floor, my stats are still pretty high.
By feel alone, even in this state, my strength, speed, and toughness were superior to that lizardman’s.
And yet I’m still struggling because that lizardman’s close-quarters combat skill is above mine.
The lizardmen, the main monsters on the 3rd Floor, are a warrior race whose entire tribe is made up of fighters.
A race that tempers itself through endless battles, actively enjoys fighting, and considers dying in combat an honor.
As such, each individual has extremely high combat ability.
Until I can surpass the lizardmen here in skill, I’m not planning to head up to the 4th Floor.
-Kerk! Kerk!
After I caught my breath for a moment, the lizardman beckoned with a curl of its fingers, as if telling me to come on.
That fucking lizard-headed bastard, seriously.
The lizardman tribe is, as said, a warrior race, and as such they reportedly take combat very seriously.
Even other races are said to respect warriors and consider it virtuous to face strong opponents with everything they have.
For them to so openly tell me to come at them means they think I’m several notches beneath them.
In other words, that bastard thinks I’m trash.
“Fine, you lizard bastard. Time to die.”
Objectively, my skill really is below his, but if he openly looks down on me, of course I’d be pissed.
Grinding my teeth, I grabbed my sword and shield and charged again.
**
I stuffed a big handful of White Roll into my mouth, chewed, and chugged down a potion.
The wounds on my arm and shoulder healed rapidly, and the HP shown in the status window was fully restored.
It was a bit rough, but I won in the end.
Honestly, I don’t think I outskilled it. From the middle on, it was pure stamina.
Maybe because lizardmen are reptiles, they tend to have trouble regulating their body temperature when a fight drags on.
Once their body temperature rises, their skin reddens enough to be obvious at a glance, and their movements noticeably slow down.
This lizardman was the same; up to the middle we were evenly matched, but once its temperature rose and its movements slowed, the momentum shifted to me.
In the end, I won mostly because of my stats again. I still have a long way to go.
“Yeah, I really am a weakling.”
I slowly looked down at the lizardman’s corpse as it turned into light and vanished.
A single white band, as if painted on, was marked on its shoulder.
That band apparently denotes rank among lizardmen. A white band means a low-ranking warrior.
Even among low-ranking warriors, they’re further divided by the number of bands, and this bastard had one white band.
Aside from lizardmen with no band at all, or yellow-banded ones who aren’t even recognized as proper warriors, that’s the lowest rank.
In military terms, that’s roughly a private. I failed to beat someone at that level with skill alone.
It’s pretty humiliating, but the fact that there’s still a long way to go also means there’s a lot of room for growth. Let’s not get too discouraged.
I tidied up my items and chewed and swallowed the remaining White Roll.
**
The village on the 3rd Floor is so small that calling it a village is almost embarrassing.
Because the entire swamp is lizardman territory, the places humans can stay are extremely limited.
It does have everything it needs, like a shop where you can sell items and a smithy where you can enhance and repair weapons.
That said, the number of NPCs is extremely small, and the lodgings available are both tiny and in terrible condition.
“Oh, you’re back! I thought you were dead!”
As I returned to the village, a man with a rough beard that made a strong impression called out to me, waving.
Like Nora, whom I met on the 2nd Floor, he’s an NPC who reacts in a way that feels almost human. His name is ‘Windsor’.
“Are you hurt anywhere? Still, it looks like you’ve managed to avoid the lizardmen well. That’s a relief.”
The 3rd Floor village is set up as a temporary camp established by an expedition team sent to investigate the ruins that exist in this swamp.
Windsor is the leader of that camp, and he also knows a great deal about lizardman ecology, making him the one who provides challengers with various bits of information.
Almost all of what I know about lizardman habits and hierarchy comes from this man.
“Anyway, take a rest for now. You did well!”
Windsor patted me hard on the back and said that. I ignored him and went to sit alone in a corner.
Just like the shepherd girl on the 2nd Floor gave me a special quest, this guy also gave me one.
[Find the Treasure of the Ruins - Expedition Leader Windsor]
Description: The 12th Alcatia Ruins Expedition entered the lizardmen’s territory while following clues recorded on an artifact.
The artifact spoke of a ruin where the ‘weapon that rules lightning’ lies asleep.
No one knows exactly what that thing is, but if the artifact’s record is accurate, it must be an extraordinary treasure.
Of course, the expedition team, stranded in lizardman territory, has to worry first about whether they can even leave here alive, much less find the treasure.
Work with Expedition Leader Windsor to find out what the ruin’s treasure is. That treasure will surely be of great help to you.
[Quest Objectives]
1. Join the expedition. (Complete).
2. Explore the ruins.
3. Identify the treasure.
Since the reward for the quest the shepherd girl gave me was so incredible, I’m naturally planning to clear this one too.
And once I clear this quest, Windsor will probably become just another ordinary NPC too.
If that’s the case, there’s no point in needlessly chatting with him and getting attached.
For the sake of protecting my mental state, it’s probably better to just ignore him for now.
“By the way, have you happened to go to the ruins I mentioned? If you saw anything, make sure to tell me!”
But damn, this bastard talks a lot.