A lever tilted at a new angle.
The orc's hand gripping it.
And a Goblin Elite lunging out from the far side of the chamber.
It wasn't hard to piece together what had happened.
"Uroooooh!!"
Having gone past finding his confidence straight into losing his mind, the orc had forgotten his place and summoned a Level 2 monster.
Alright, I've got the picture.
Now, what should I do?
I have two options.
1. Abandon the orc right here and run away with the other two.
2. Fight together as a party.
Honestly, it wasn't even worth debating.
What future would a party have if it ditched a teammate the first time things got dicey?
Even in the game, pulling a stunt like that wrecked your party's cohesion and usually led to a total wipe before long.
"Raise your weapons!"
The instant I made up my mind, I kicked off the floor and sprinted forward—
"You definitely said it was a dangerous monster earlier... Ngh!"
"C-Count me in!"
And my party members charged right after me.
"I am a mighty warrior! A mere Goblin is nothing to me!"
Before we could reach him, however, the orc and the Goblin Elite clashed first.
The orc's downward axe swing slammed into the Elite's shield with a dull CLANG!
"Eek?"
Deflected off course, the orc's axe chopped uselessly into the dirt, and at the same instant, the Goblin Elite's blade flashed in.
The orc hastily threw an arm up to block, but he was too late.
THWACK!
The blade bit deep into his forearm, spraying blood.
"Gah!"
Reeling from the worst pain he'd felt since entering the labyrinth, the orc dropped his axe and toppled backward.
"S-S-Stay back!"
In a single blow, the cowardly orc was back.
Gripped by terror, all he could do was flail his remaining good arm and legs around helplessly.
Naturally, flailing wasn't going to stop a sword blade.
Still, the Elite's sword never pierced the orc's throat.
[Surprise Lightning]
BOOM—!
The bolt of lightning flying straight for the creature's head struck dead-on.
Paralyzed on the spot, the Goblin Elite froze in its tracks.
It didn't last long, though.
Starting at Level 2, monsters had a Resistance stat.
"Kiryaa!"
Shaking off the paralysis in a heartbeat, the Goblin Elite leveled the tip of its sword at the orc once more.
"H-Hyaaah! Get away! G-Go away!"
The orc was still wide open.
Once again, however, the Elite's blade failed to reach its mark.
CLANG!
Just as the creature had done a moment ago, my shield deflected its strike.
'Heavy.'
It felt completely different from fighting a regular Goblin.
Even though I'd angled the parry cleanly, a heavy jolt ran up my arm.
Clear proof of a sizable gap in stats.
And that was despite the Goblin Elite being on the weaker end of Level 2 monsters.
'Yeah... this won't be easy.'
I already knew that in theory, sure, but feeling it firsthand drove the point home much harder.
Finishing my calculations in a flash, I barked orders to my party members.
Since we hadn't established callouts yet, I kept it as simple as possible.
"I'll hold the front! You two take its left and right flanks from behind!"
Thankfully, the two of them didn't bolt toward the same side.
Reading the situation quickly, the elf and the dwarf took up positions on the left and right.
"Attack together on my signal!"
With a sharp CLANG!, I deflected another slash and shouted right away.
"Now!"
Nudging forward with my shield, I thrust my spear out.
My strike—THUD!—was blocked by the Goblin Elite's shield.
Put another way, that meant the front was the only direction it could guard right now.
While the Elite's attention was pinned on me, THWACK—! the elf's and the dwarf's strikes landed squarely on its wide-open back.
"Kireek!"
A shriek like that meant the damage had gone through cleanly.
Was it a fatal wound, though? Not by a long shot.
"Back off!"
Before the echo of my shout even faded, the Elite's blade whipped around in a wide slash behind it.
Had they not pulled back ahead of time, both the elf's and the dwarf's necks would have been right in that arc.
Fortunately, they'd cleared out in time, and that exchange made me a little more confident.
'We can take it.'
The movements of the Goblin Elite standing before me were identical to what I'd seen thousands of times in [Dungeon Log].
I'd wondered if reality might be different, but if it moved this predictably, the difficulty dropped considerably.
Its attack patterns weren't just memorized—they were practically etched into my brain.
"From now on, we hit and run in order! Starting with me, clockwise!"
I barked the order as I lashed out with my spear.
Not a thrust this time, but a sweep.
Grazing it with the tip did pathetic damage, sure, but thrusting straight in wouldn't pierce deep through its defense anyway.
If anything, I'd just risk getting my weapon wrenched out of my hands.
"Kiryak!"
Registering the hit from behind, the Elite spun around and swung, but since I'd already stepped back out of range, its blade cut empty air.
Right on cue, the elf struck in the exact same way, and when it whirled on her, the dwarf hit it next, followed by me again in a steady rotation.
It looked simple and scrappy, sure, but against a mindless monster like this, it was the safest and surest method.
Provided, of course, that none of us made a single "mistake."
The problem was that a fight where one slip-up meant losing your head was more than enough to put our beginner party on edge.
"Hyaaap!"
Getting carried away, the elf swung her sword in a wide arc.
THWACK—! The blow landed cleanly, but contrary to her hopes, the Goblin Elite didn't drop dead.
"Kiryaa!"
The Goblin Elite spun on its heel and slashed back immediately, and the elf—who had stepped in too deep and failed to leave herself room to retreat—frantically raised her sword and barely parried the blow.
She couldn't absorb the heavy recoil, however, and with a ringing CLANG—! and a shrill "Kyaaah!", she was knocked flat onto her back.
A veteran Explorer would have rolled with the fall and recovered their stance in one motion, but the elf didn't have that kind of skill.
The moment she hit the ground, she was left wide open, and the Goblin Elite instantly recognized prey that had become much easier to kill.
Locking onto its new target, the creature lunged straight at the elf.
I darted after it to bash it aside, but sadly, the creature was faster.
SHUNK! Its blade hacked deep into her thigh, sending blood spurting like a fountain.
"Kyaaaaaah!!"
With that, the elf was out of the fight too.
At least knocking the creature off her a split second later kept her from losing her life on the spot.
"Shit."
Needless to say, things looked grim.
The gash in her thigh was way too deep.
Without quick treatment, she'd bleed to death before long.
The same went for the orc, whose arm was half-hacked through.
"No choice, then."
There was no hope left in the hit-and-run strategy from earlier.
With only two of us left, whittling it down like that would take way too long.
And if our two downed teammates bled out in the meantime, I was as good as dead too.
Making my call, I switched tactics on the spot.
"I'll take the front by myself! Get behind it and aim only for its head!"
"G-Got it!"
Thankfully, even in a crisis like this, the dwarf trusted me without hesitation.
I stepped in first and faced the Goblin Elite head-on.
"Kiraaaah!!"
The Elite let out a fierce roar.
It practically sounded like it was yelling, 'You're dead meat, you weakling bastard!'
Given the gap in our stats, it wasn't wrong, either.
Still, I had an ace up my sleeve of my own.
'It definitely doesn't have much left in the tank.'
For starters, its stamina was nearly bottomed out.
It had lost plenty of blood, too.
If I could land one clean, decisive blow, it would go down.
'I'll end this in one sequence.'
And then there was my new body.
Didn't I have this body that had turned a clumsy guy like me into a seasoned fighter?
Whatever my mind pictured, this body could pull off.
CLANG!
I knocked its incoming sword aside with my shield and thrust my spear forward.
The creature tried to block with its shield, but the buckler wasn't all that large.
Twisting my wrist at a different angle than before, I slipped the spear tip past the edge of its shield and struck its torso.
Thud.
The impact felt shallow.
It didn't pierce the hide.
That had to be the natural defense coming from its high Physical stats.
Yanking my spear back in a flash, I twisted my torso to the side.
THWACK!
The Elite's sword cleaved through the exact spot I'd been standing a split second earlier.
Its balance faltered, leaving its neck exposed at the same instant.
I thrust immediately—
Thud.
Shallow again.
I tried to lean in and drive the point through, but it wouldn't budge easily.
"Kiryak!"
Dropping its shield at once, the Elite grabbed hold of my spear shaft with one hand and swung its sword wildly with the other to force me back.
SHHK! SLASH! Its frantic swings carved shallow cuts across my arm.
Even that lasted only a moment, though.
Because this fight wasn't a fair one-on-one duel.
"Hraaaah!!"
Having circled around behind it, the dwarf was in position.
CRACK!
The mace he swung slammed hard into the back of the creature's skull.
On reflex, the Elite whipped its sword behind it, but—WHOOSH—the blade sliced through empty air.
The dwarf hadn't dodged; he was simply too short for the horizontal swing to hit him.
That was the exact reason I'd told him to aim only for the head.
A Goblin Elite had a fixed pattern of counterattacking at the exact height where it was struck.
"Got you."
The instant its sword arm swung away, its posture broke completely.
SKRRK— The stalled tip of my spear began to sink inward slightly—
CRACK!
And the moment the dwarf brought his mace crashing down onto the creature's skull a second time—
SHUNK—!
Putting my whole weight behind the thrust, I drove the spear shaft clean through the Elite's throat.
"Ke, kergh..."
Its dying groan lasted only a second.
The life flickering in its eyes went dull and died out.
Thud.
Only after making sure all the strength had drained from its body—
"Pwah—!"
Could I finally let out the breath I'd been holding.
"Fuck..."
Surviving in this goddamn world was grueling work.
And the worst part was, our first day still wasn't even over.
***
The fight was over, sure, but that didn't mean I got to rest.
I still had urgent work that needed taking care of right away.
I treated the elf first since her wound was more critical, then poured an appropriate amount of potion onto the orc's arm as well.
"O-Ow, it hurts! It hurts!"
While getting treated, the orc carried on like he was dying.
In reality, using a potion didn't cause any pain at all.
Now that the adrenaline had worn off, though, the pain of the wound itself seemed to be hitting him all at once.
"Kyaaaaah!!"
Wait, why is this bastard screeching at the top of his lungs like that?
The elf was the one who took the much nastier wound.
This guy only got his forearm hacked, whereas she nearly had her thigh carved off.
Even the guy who had his back punctured earlier barely made a peep... Ah, was that only because he was half-dead from blood loss at the time?
Either way—
"Stop whining."
"I-I am not whining! Human, you only say that b-because you do not know...!"
"From what I heard, warriors don't feel pain."
"Hngh, mmmph...!"
Thankfully, he was simple-minded enough to fall for that.
It looked like that line alone would be plenty to keep him in check going forward.
"Haa... I feel like I'm going to live now."
Treated first, the elf's thigh had already returned close to normal.
The color had come back to her face, too, after turning even paler than her naturally fair skin.
"Wrap what's left of the wound in bandages. Using any more potion could cause problems."
"Okay."
Since I'd explained Overhealing to her while tending her leg, the elf followed my instructions without fuss.
After a little more first aid, treatment for both of our seriously injured teammates was more or less finished, and we gathered in a circle to move on to the next item on the agenda.
There were three things we needed to take care of right here.
First, recovering our nearly exhausted stamina.
Second, dismantling the Goblin Elite.
Those two, of course, took care of themselves while we sat around resting.
What mattered was the third—
"You do realize what you did wrong, don't you?"
The culprit behind this whole mess.
It was time to hold a hearing for the orc.
"I-I am sorry..."
There were plenty of ways to punish this dim-witted orc.
We could gang up and beat some sense into him, or we could just kick him out of the party.
From my twenty-plus years of managing hundreds of parties inside this labyrinth, however, I knew neither of those was the right answer.
"Why did you do it?"
"I-I thought I could win..."
"Based on what?"
"Because I grew stronger..."
"You must realize now that you aren't strong enough for that yet."
"...I do."
"I see. Understood."
With that brief Q&A wrapped up—
"...?"
The orc blinked at me as if something had gone wrong.
"What, is there a problem?"
"Is... i-is that all?"
"Why, should I string you up by the neck right here instead?"
"T-That is not what I mean..."
He looked like a kid who'd done something bad and felt even more anxious because he wasn't getting scolded.
"Everyone here knows you didn't put us in danger on purpose. Isn't that right?"
"Well... yes."
"Ignorance is not a sin."
"Everyone... t-thank you..."
Touched by their words, the orc started sniffling in a way that didn't suit his mug at all.
Alright, it's about time to wrap this up.
"Keep this in mind, though. A screw-up like this will only be forgiven once. Promise me you'll never act on your own again, and that you'll follow my orders to the letter."
"...I swear it upon my honor as a warrior."
"Good, that settles it."
The dismantling work had finished ages ago, and our stamina was back up, too.
Having concluded the hearing, I got to my feet.
Then, just as I was gearing up to move out again, the orc—who had been sitting there in a daze—suddenly spoke up.
"...Wait, why are you not scolding me?"
Isn't it obvious?
"We're comrades, aren't we? Putting our lives on the line together."
Because handling it like this makes his loyalty shoot through the roof.
"Comrades... putting our lives on the line together..."
"Wait, were we not?"
"N-No! That is right! We are comrades! Just like you, I can risk my life for all of you too!"
"I'll see about that when the time comes."
"I will prove it without fail!"
And just like that, our party's slave... no, passionate teammate was locked in.