Chapter 37
#37. Example
A statue-shaped monster radiating golden light from its entire body.
It wasn’t an ordinary humanoid statue; it had three heads and six arms.
Just by looking at it, it seemed like a golem-type monster, which meant its core might be lodged in its chest like the trash mobs.
-Thud!
I kicked off the ground hard and leaped straight at the statue. Two of the statue’s six arms moved in response.
Those arms spread wide, aiming for the spot where I’d jumped, as if they were going to clap down on me like they were swatting a fly.
Since I was in the air, evasion was impossible, but that’s exactly what skills are for.
I used Sword Charge, a rushing skill, and shot my body forward in midair.
-Thwack!
My sword, sparkling with a skill effect, drove cleanly into the statue’s chest.
But the feel of it was a little weird. It looked like it should be inorganic, but instead of striking stone, it felt like piercing flesh.
The glittering scraps of gold only covered the surface; underneath, it seemed to be made of flesh with blood flowing through it.
In that case, I figured it was better to assume there wasn’t a core acting as a weak point like a golem’s.
“Nice.”
You might think having no weakness is bad, but for me, this is a lot better.
If it were the type with a core that had to be destroyed, that would just mean fewer places I could target.
And any living thing made of blood and flesh has a common weakness. Like those three heads over there.
From the feel of the sword sinking in, its durability didn’t seem that high either. I’d be able to slice the whole thing up in no time.
-Sshhk!
I twisted and pulled the sword out of its chest. Green blood, not red, sprayed out.
Just from the color, it looked like poison, but whether it was poison or not didn’t matter much. What level was my poison resistance again?
The boss’s golden hand came flying at me again. I kicked its chest hard and backed off.
-Boom!
A loud impact rang out as the boss’s body tilted and staggered. My strength stat was one thing, but the boss was lighter than I’d expected.
I’d assumed it was the kind of boss that relied on its huge frame and toughness to unleash destructive force.
But if it went over so easily from my kick, there was a good chance it wasn’t actually the hand-to-hand type.
-Krrrk!
The next moment, my hunch was proven right. One of the boss’s heads opened its mouth and launched a magic attack.
With a mechanical whirring sound, a heat haze shimmered and it spat out flames.
“Watch out!”
Kim Jina, who was a little ways away, shouted. She must have realized how powerful the magic attack was.
Sure enough, the flames it spewed carried an intensity greater than the fire breath of the Salamander boss on the 4th floor.
But that Salamander’s flames barely did anything to me anyway.
-Whoosh!
I blocked the flames with my shield raised.
The searing heat came through from beyond the shield, but my flesh wasn’t going to burn over something like this.
[Fire Resistance Lv. 14]
My Fire Resistance skill, which had reached double digits, was protecting my body. This much just felt warm, that’s all.
“Crazy……”
I heard the rude paladin assigned to tank duty mutter a curse under his breath.
He must have been pretty shocked, but for a tank to be this rattled over something like this.
-Clomp, clomp.
I kept my shield up and pushed straight through the stream of flames.
The distance to the boss closed in an instant, and the stream of fire didn’t last long before cutting off abruptly.
-Krrrk.
And once again, another of the boss’s heads opened its mouth with that mechanical sound.
What it fired this time wasn’t flame, but a huge icicle.
Looks like it couldn’t handle fire, so it was going to try ice instead.
[Frost Resistance Lv. 11]
My Frost Resistance level was still lower than my Fire Resistance, so it wasn’t exactly the wrong choice.
But who said I’d just sit there and take it? Did he think my shield was decoration?
-Crash!
I smashed the flying icicle to pieces with a sweep of my shield, then slid under the boss and closed the distance.
At the same time, I stowed my sword and shield in my inventory and switched to a different weapon.
[+5 Brave Warrior’s Short Sword]
[+5 Brave Warrior’s Short Sword]
I drew the pair of short swords I’d gotten from killing lizardmen on the 3rd floor, one in each hand.
They weren’t my preferred weapons, but this was exactly the time for them.
Watch closely, you twin-sword freak.
This is how you use dual-wielding.
**
The boss monster, with all six arms and both legs severed away, had become a wobbling roly-poly toy.
I smashed the gold head with a hammer until it could no longer even use magic attacks.
-Crash!
[Clear Reward : Obtained ‘Meteorstone Fragment X3’]
[Highest Contribution Reward : Obtained ‘Meteorstone Fragment’]
It was kind of refreshing to see such a plain message after always seeing nothing but first-clear notices.
As for the boss, it was nothing special.
The elemental attacks from its three heads didn’t work on me, and neither did its hand-to-hand combat with six arms.
Even with the dual swords I wasn’t all that used to, I could still overpower it easily, and after switching to a hammer, it became even easier.
I didn’t time it, but it was over in just a few minutes. This was probably the dungeon’s fastest clear time.
HP : 779/780
The health I’d lost to the magic attacks had almost fully recovered thanks to [Combat Healing].
“Uh, uh……well, so.”
The three party members, including Kim Jina, were looking at me with different expressions.
Gladiator Kim Jin-seok, the twin-sword addict, was rubbing his eyes as if he’d just woken from a dream.
The mage Kim Jina had her mouth hanging open, staring at me with sparkling eyes.
And the rude paladin Kim Min-hyeong had gone completely pale, his jaw trembling violently.
“Hey.”
Finding their reactions a little funny, I walked over and spoke to them casually.
Apparently thinking I might eat him or something, Kim Min-hyeong jumped and backed away. This guy’s kind of quick on his feet.
“Y-yes?”
His belated reply was in honorifics. Anyone looking at this would think I’d beaten him senseless or something.
“What did you say about Jeonbungi?”
“N-no, nothing, hyung-nim.”
He wasn’t even calling me Jeonbungi anymore—now he was calling me hyung-nim. So this bastard knew my age and was still calling me hyung-nim?
With the atmosphere like this, and him looking so scared, it was the perfect situation to give him a hard time.
But even if this guy had been rude, it wasn’t like he’d crossed any real lines.
Besides, when I stepped forward to deal with the golem, he’d waved me off, telling me not to go if I wanted to die.
His words had been harsh, but you could say he was worrying about me in his own way.
He was just being a jerk because of some male instinct; he wasn’t actually that bad a guy.
Besides, who was I to judge someone as good or bad? I was just a parasite living off my mother’s hard work.
Since he seemed to understand his place now, maybe I should just give him a light lesson.
“You’re the tank, right? Raise your shield.”
“Huh? My shield?”
“Yeah, hold it up and put all your strength into it.”
Kim Min-hyeong didn’t ask twice and did as he was told, lifting his shield. His stance was a little awkward.
I lightly tapped his arms and legs with the handle of the hammer in my hand, adjusting his defense posture.
It was a stance I’d learned while fighting lizardmen with nothing but a shield during the 3rd-floor closed-door training.
Just getting your posture right like this can withstand impacts better than most defensive skills.
“Here I go.”
Leaving Kim Min-hyeong standing there in his defensive stance, I cracked my knuckles.
He’d learned the stance, so now he should try it in practice, right?
I rushed forward from a short distance and punched the top of Kim Min-hyeong’s shield.
-Boom!
“Gah!”
Unable to endure the impact, Kim Min-hyeong was sent flying with his shield and crumpled to the ground.
Ah, that felt good.
**
Once the boss fell, the dungeon was cleared, and we went back out through the portal that appeared.
[You have broken the clear record for the Secret Golden Temple (Intermediate).]
Then a system message appeared, and our names were engraved on the small metal plaque hanging at the dungeon entrance.
As I’d guessed, it really had been the fastest clear time.
There wasn’t any special reward for setting a record, but still, it felt good to accomplish something.
“Wow, the clear time was almost cut in half? That trap must have been a shortcut to the boss fight.”
Meanwhile, Kim Jina was jumping up and down with excitement again. Like I’d noticed earlier, she was pretty expressive.
Should I say she has kind of a retriever vibe? The sort of person who’s happy first, no matter what’s going on.
“Thanks to you, Jin-hyuk, we even set a record like this. I really thought I was going to die at first, but……”
Kim Jina immediately started rambling on and on about how she’d felt when she was surrounded by the golem.
Not only was she expressive, she was just plain talkative.
I listened to Kim Jina’s chatter, then suddenly realized we still hadn’t divided the rewards and said,
“Ah, right. We should split this up.”
Aside from experience and gold, all the clear rewards from a mini dungeon go to the party leader.
The extra reward given to the party member with the highest contribution was an exception, but that had naturally come to me.
I practically cleared it by myself, but I didn’t want to get flamed on the community for not distributing the rewards.
Besides, I wasn’t really interested in anything other than the coins I needed to buy gukbap from a street stall.
We can just split it four ways, right?
I was thinking that as I looked through the interface for the trade request button.
“Ah, about that, Jin-hyuk.”
Kim Jina made a suggestion I’d never expected.