Then repeat.
That was the answer Renn came up with.
Use every bit of time he had to explore and raise his status so he’d be ready when the trouble came.
Of course, he absolutely wasn’t thinking about using the time Lili spent as his supporter to pour all his energy into exploring.
Luckily, the effort paid off.
After yesterday’s status update from Hestia, the difference in actual Dungeon combat was more like one plus one equals three.
He ran into goblins and dungeon lizards again.
Monsters that used to give him trouble now went down like stray dogs on the roadside, kicked to death without him even slowing his pace.
Before long he reached the sixth floor.
The environment hadn’t changed much, still the same cave passages.
But Renn was taking things a lot more seriously now.
According to what that Eina from the Adventurer’s Guild had told him, war shadows were famous under another name: newbie killer.
“Have you ever run into a war shadow?”
“…I have.”
Lili didn’t hide anything when he asked.
Back when other adventurers hired her, she’d come through here plenty of times.
She knew he wasn’t asking out of boredom, so she thought back on the details.
“War shadows…
they’re pretty hard to deal with.”
“But if you kill one, the war shadow finger blade it drops sells for a good amount!”
“I meant what they look like.”
“Just a mass of black shadow.
Really long arms, hooked claws at the ends, and something round on top of the head.”
“…”
Up ahead, a humanoid shape was crawling slowly along the ground and pulling itself together, and it matched her description exactly.
A pitch-black thing.
War Shadow.
If Renn hadn’t watched this thing being born with his own eyes, his instincts might have reacted differently.
He held back the urge to grab a whip and start swinging.
Those sharp hooked claws at the ends of its arms were especially bad.
Just looking at them was enough pressure.
And if the Adventurer’s Guild called it a newbie killer, that meant it had a confirmed kill record.
“This looks like it’ll be a bit rough.”
In another kind of world, Renn would have happily farmed the shallow floors forever and become a sword god off pure grinding.
Unfortunately, this world had no experience points, so if he wanted his status to go up, he had to push deeper.
He held the adventurer dagger in a reverse grip in his right hand and watched the war shadow close in, not rushing into an attack.
Renn honestly wasn’t great at fighting.
But he’d put in his hours as a player, so he had a nose for this sort of thing, especially when it came to a monster the Dungeon was known for.
He had to stay careful.
The war shadow clearly wasn’t thinking that hard.
It was a monster driven by pure killing instinct, and the moment it noticed him ahead, it picked up speed.
Riding the momentum, it swung its wrist hard and swept those hooked claws straight at his chest.
Clang!
Metal rang against metal.
Renn had parried in time, but the force of the impact still traveled up through the adventurer dagger and into the web of his right hand.
The strength behind it caught him off guard.
This thing wasn’t in the same class as anything he’d fought on the floors above.
Still, he had reasons he couldn’t lose no matter what.
There were Hestia’s expectations, and then there was the more important one.
He didn’t want it to hurt.
“…”
He’d caught the war shadow in the recovery after its blocked swing.
Renn dropped low, and the power stored in his legs let go all at once.
He shot forward like a cannonball at the staggering monster, and the instant he reached it, he swung the dagger in a clean horizontal cut.
There wasn’t much feedback compared to other monsters, since the thing was basically a mass of shadow.
By the time he registered what had happened, the so-called newbie killer had already crumbled into black-gray dust and vanished in front of him.
A war shadow finger blade and a magic stone hit the ground.
Honestly, the hard fight he’d braced for never came.
The only real difference from a goblin was that the war shadow had a better weapon.
“Huh?”
“Why does it feel…
like it wasn’t as strong as I expected?”
“…”
Watching that fight end almost before it started, Lili really wanted to say something, but she couldn’t find the right angle for it.
Because he genuinely was a rookie adventurer.
And yet the newbie killer, a monster she couldn’t handle at all on her own, had looked like a raw recruit in front of him.
So is it that I don’t have the guts to fight monsters, or is there something wrong with this guy?!
Good news, though.
Maybe that ridiculous adaptability of his meant there was actually a way to deal with Enman and his crowd.
*
The rest of the exploration went smoothly, with almost no complications, but they got back to Orario a lot earlier than yesterday.
The reason was simple.
The monsters were stronger now, so fighting drained more of Renn’s stamina, and he had to keep enough in reserve for the trip back.
He looked out at the central plaza.
It was probably somewhere around two or three o’clock.
The sun overhead beat down on them, and even the air felt hot and dry.
He glanced at the girl beside him, who was clearly a little uneasy.
“I’m heading to the Adventurer’s Guild next to exchange everything from today’s run for valis.”
“You coming?”
The reason for the invitation was simple.
As long as Lili was with him, he didn’t have to worry about her safety for now, and today’s exploration meant her wages needed to be settled properly.
“That’s all right…”
“I still have to pay you something.
I’m not letting you work for free!”
“…”
Hearing that, she looked up with clear surprise in her eyes.
She’d fully expected to get nothing out of it.
After all, this whole conflict existed because of her.
Lili was about to say something when she noticed a few very familiar Soma Familia adventurers moving around the edge of the central plaza.
“Then…
bring it to me when we meet tomorrow!”
She handed over all the drop items without explaining much, but she filed that bit of kindness away somewhere deep.
She watched him walk off.
Then she turned her eyes back to those ‘familia seniors’ and their bad intentions.
Renn’s fight in the Dungeon was over for today.
And her own fight was only just starting.
The strong bully the weak.
Has that ever actually been right?
“…”
Lili suddenly felt like something about that wasn’t quite right.