The moment our eyes met, silence fell over the area.
"..."
"..."
But it didn't last long.
On the 1st floor, where simply running into another person was hard enough—and after we had traveled over 40 km, at that—before I could even lament this shitty coincidence of bumping into the exact same bastards again—
"It's those bastards!"
"Kill them!!"
The Raiders, who must have been desperately hunting for us for days on end, charged in hotly at this touching reunion.
'Damn it.'
It was already too late to run away like last time.
We didn't have a 'kick' like back then, either.
Therefore, there was only one conclusion.
"Draw your weapons!"
We had to fight.
The instant that thought crossed my mind, my eyes moved instinctively to analyze the enemy's strength.
'All melee weapons.'
I didn't know what skills they had, but there was a high chance they didn't possess any magic.
At the very least, they hadn't used any last time.
If they'd had any, they would have tried a ranged attack to catch at least one of us.
And lately, they'd been busy looking for us.
'Their condition doesn't look great, either.'
Unlike us, who were guaranteed at least six to eight hours of sleep a day thanks to the Orc, those guys seemed to have been standing regular night watches every time.
At a beginner's level, doing that for five days inevitably tanked your condition.
On top of that, they must have been under heavy stress from the obsession of having to find us before we went up to the city and reported them.
Even at a glance, extreme fatigue was radiating from their faces.
'...This might be doable.'
Because our situation had changed a bit from our first encounter, too.
We had gotten fairly used to combat, and our stats had gone up, even if only slightly.
Unlike before, when we couldn't even count on a 20 percent chance of winning and running away had been our best option, right now—
'Fifty-fifty at minimum.'
Depending on how things went, we might even have a slight edge.
Perhaps sensing that instinctively as well, my party members looked tense, yet showed no sign of trembling in fear.
"I-it is my first time fighting humans...!"
Ah, except for this cowardly Orc.
"For starters, you're stronger than that guy."
"A-are you sure?!"
"You can tell just by looking that he's weak."
"Now that I hear it, that sounds right! Weak-looking human! Come here! I will be your opponent!"
Still, since he was a simpleton, a little smooth talking got him back on track right away.
"You two take one each as well. Can you do it?"
Since this was our first fight against other people and there was no time to hand down complex tactics, the strategy was kept very simple.
"Yes."
The Elf and the Dwarf were each assigned a nearby enemy as well.
The problem was—
"Doesn't that leave one of them?!"
There were four of us, and five of them.
Which meant the remaining one—
"I'll take two."
—fell to me, our party's ace.
"What are you...!"
The Dwarf and the Elf, who worried about me every single time, wanted to say something again now, but unfortunately, they weren't given the time.
The Raiders, who had charged in without hesitation, closed the distance to right in front of us, and our weapons clashed.
My opponents were the cocky guy acting like an enforcer and the leader of the Raiders.
Unlike the others, who were fighting fiercely right from the start, the two of them stood before me wearing easy grins.
"You little bastard, you sure talked big back then, huh?"
"Why don't you try begging for your life even now? You never know, I might just feel like sparing you."
"You talk too much."
As if we were on friendly enough terms to stand around chatting.
I raised my spear shaft at once.
"Hah... This bastard still doesn't know his place..."
"Max, be careful. Something's off about him."
"Even so, nobody beats numbers, right?"
The enforcer, Max, slung a large curved blade like an executioner's sword over his shoulder and grinned nastily.
The boss gripped a dagger in each hand and took his stance.
"Still, it's better to play it safe. Focus on finishing him as fast as possible."
"Yep!"
With Max's shout, the two of them lunged in unison.
Max came at my left, while the boss stabbed toward my right.
'A pincer attack.'
Predictable, yet effective.
However, these guys weren't the only ones with a strategy.
[Grease]
The new skill I had picked up while grinding Twinkle Dogs.
Its effect was the exact same as its name.
As a chunk of my mana flew away, a thin film of oil formed across the floor.
"Whoa!"
A predictable, yet time-tested trick.
Charging in excitedly, Max staggered hard and wiped out—THUD!—flat on the floor.
"Now it's one-on-one."
Only for a moment, of course, but that alone was enough.
Because I have 'Yuta.'
"Not a chance!"
The trajectories of the flying twin daggers were crystal clear to me.
I slowed my footwork to let the first strike slide past, then blocked the second with my shield.
Before the deflected blade can come back around, it's my turn.
Pulling my shield back slightly, I thrust my spear out fast, aiming cleanly for his exposed abdomen.
'That's one down first.'
It's an angle he can never dodge.
Yet the boss did not become a corpse on the spot.
SWISH!
His body pulled back in an instant, and my spear failed to reach him.
Truly acrobatic movement.
I recognized the principle behind it right away.
[Backstep]
A Body-type Rune skill.
As long as your feet were on the ground and there was space behind you, it ignored all conditions and pulled you back by a single step no matter what.
"Cheap trick."
"Look who's talking!"
Having picked himself back up in the meantime, Max lunged at me.
Perhaps because he had taken a hard fall just now, his movements were slightly awkward.
Even so, I couldn't kill him right away.
SHRRK—!
Because the moment I wasted a move on him, the boss's attack would tear me apart.
His claim last time about being used to carving up people hadn't been an empty boast, it seemed, as the boss's strikes were quite sharp.
In a one-on-one fight, 'Yuta' was stronger, but with even one mediocre guy mixed in, I couldn't find an opening at all.
Whenever I barely managed to seize a chance, the guy used [Backstep] to slip away every time.
THUD! CLANG!
Because of that, my options were either blocking or dodging.
I was being limited to those two.
"You little rat!"
Meanwhile, Max kept swinging his large curved blade wildly around.
Full of openings as he was, each of his swings packed a heavy punch, and he was starting to become a problem too.
I couldn't just dodge every single attack forever, after all.
As time went on, a stiff ache was building up in my arms.
"About time you started running out of steam, isn't it?"
Noticing it too, the boss smiled as if victory were already in his grasp.
But—
"You can still smile when you're about to croak?"
The winner of this fight is me.
Because my mana has just filled up to the exact amount I needed.
"Bluffing till the very end... You're something else."
"Die! You son of a bitch!!"
"I'll send this loudmouth off first."
BAM!—I put force into my shield for an instant to shove Max a step back, then pointed the tip of my spear at him.
And cast my skill.
[Surprise Lightning]
Normally, a single shot of this couldn't kill a person.
Right now, however, the situation is different.
Having rolled around on the oiled floor once, his entire body was soaked through and still glistening.
CRACK!
All the mana in my body drained out at once as a small bolt of lightning struck down—
WHOOSH!
"Kwaaaagh!!"
Flames spread along the oil coating his entire body.
Engulfed in fire, Max couldn't withstand the searing pain and dropped straight to the floor, rolling around.
"Water! Waaater!"
"Max!"
"Do you have the luxury to worry about your friend?"
Without giving him a split second's breathing room, I charged.
"Hup!"
Having looked away for an instant, the boss quickly took his stance, yet—
"Too late."
In a fight happening at point-blank range, that lapse in focus was far too long.
CLANG—!
He crossed his twin daggers to block my spear tip, but that was all.
Because both of his hands were tied up stopping a single spear, my other hand was all too free.
THUD!—the edge of my shield slammed into his ribcage.
"Out of mana, too?"
He can't use [Backstep] anymore, either.
Then there is only one option left for this bastard.
"Die."
While he staggered from the blow, my spear reclaimed its freedom.
Its tip shot straight out again.
THUNK—!
There was no upset.
The boss's throat was pierced clean through.
***
My fight was over.
Yet our battle was still underway.
"Urooooh!"
"You stupid barbarian bastard!"
"I am a smart warrior!"
For starters, the Orc looks fine.
"Huff... huff..."
"Swear to god, you Dwarf bastards..."
On the Dwarf's side, it was an exhausting stalemate for both of them.
"Your form is sloppy!"
"Aaagh!"
The Elf, on the other hand, was in terrible shape.
Unlike her opponent, who had only taken a few shallow cuts and was fighting with room to spare, she was pouring blood from her entire body.
"Guh..."
She seemed to be squeezing out every last drop of strength to keep moving, but even that had hit its limit.
Torn muscles couldn't muster strength, after all.
"It's over now."
Her legs had lost their function long ago, and past the arm she could no longer even raise properly, the female Raider reached out for her throat.
However, the Elf's artery wasn't severed.
THUD!
The Raider's blade was blocked by my shield.
"You... how...?"
I knew what she was asking, but I didn't answer her.
Because there was only one thing I had to say to these Raider bastards.
"Die."
My spear tip flew without fail.
***
Amid cold steel glinting under the dim light, lives were snuffed out one by one.
It wasn't long before the fight wrapped up.
And for our very first battle against other people, we were handed a not-so-bad report card.
Three lightly wounded, one seriously wounded, zero dead.
Had I been just a little late, the second number and the last number would have traded places, but thankfully, I had made it in time.
The seriously wounded one was the Elf, and a potion administered before it was too late refilled her fading life.
"Haa... I really can't get used to this..."
That was already her second time nearly dying and coming back.
For a beginner, you could call that quite a high count.
Good luck depending on how you looked at it, or bad luck.
"Anyway, you saved my life again, Yuta. I ought to pay you back for my life, shouldn't I?"
"Yeah, make sure you pay me back."
"If you ever end up in a similar situation, Yuta, I'll definitely save you then."
Despite her good intentions, it wasn't all that welcome to hear.
I don't want to end up in a state like that in the first place.
"Just pay me in cash."
"Looks like I'll have to earn a whole lot of money now."
While we were trading idle chatter like that, the Dwarf asked a question.
"Yuta, is using the potion up to here enough?"
He had been applying the potion to the Elf in my stead, since my Divination effect reduced potion efficiency by 77% when used on others.
"That's plenty. Use the rest on yourself."
"I'm fine. My wounds are all in awkward spots."
"When you want to heal evenly all over, you can just drink it."
"Oh, there's a way like that too?"
The Dwarf gulped down the small amount of potion left, and 15 seconds later, as the effect kicked in, the minor cuts scattered across his body rapidly closed up.
"Give me a potion too!"
Seeing that, the Orc rushed over.
"...Just leave wounds like that alone."
"It hurts for me too! It is even bleeding!"
Listen to this bastard whine.
Thanks to getting lucky and facing the weakest of the bunch, the Orc's only injuries were a few shallow scratches.
If we carelessly used a potion on scratches like that, it would only trigger Overhealing.
Honestly, the way he acted really didn't match how he looked.
"I heard warriors know how to overcome pain."
"...I-in truth, it is nothing at all! I only said that because the potion looked delicious!"
"Just go bring their bags."
While treating our wounds and recovering our stamina, we decided to check the spoils from this battle.
Looking at the Raiders' bags gathered in front of us, the Elf suddenly spoke up.
"Somehow... it feels like opening treasure chests."
"You never know. There really might be treasure inside."
"Really?"
"I think there will be treasure in this bag! I will open this bag!"
Naturally, the odds of that were slim to none.
Still—
'Then again, you never know, right?'
Weird things happened in the labyrinth all the time, after all.