Party Leader: Baek Jaeseong — 6
The next day dawned. After checking every last piece of our gear, we stepped through the entrance of Devil's Basement. The mouth of the dungeon looked exactly like a vehicle ramp descending into an underground parking garage — except for the sinister aura spilling from within, which made it abundantly clear this was no ordinary place. Goosebumps prickled across my skin of their own accord, and the eerie chill pulled my muscles taut.
"This isn't a dungeon that's going to give us much trouble, so don't get too wound up."
As if my voice had given her courage, Yeonji at the vanguard drove her steps forward with even more vigor. Our formation put Yeonji at the front, Sujin and me in the middle, and Lina and Jisu covering the rear.
After about three minutes of downhill walking, the slope leveled off, and a broad, gently graded space opened ahead. A musty stench stabbed at our noses — that particular, stifling basement smell so familiar it almost felt nostalgic. Nostalgia, however, was the last thing the darkness had in mind. A sharp killing intent needled at us from the gloom, scraping against our nerves.
"From here on, the dungeon's power is going to drain our stamina on a cycle. I'll handle the healing, so let's keep as easy a pace as we can."
The impure energy flooding the dungeon gnawed away at the stamina of any Dungeon Hunter who set foot inside. Leave it untreated long enough and you ended up with serious status ailments — auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, a full mental break. That was why a healer was essential in Devil's Basement. You could paper over it with potions, but then you'd completely wreck this dungeon's greatest advantage: its profit margin.
"Lights on."
We switched on the headlamps each of us was wearing. The lanterns threw the surroundings into bright relief and secured our field of vision. A wide, gloomy emptiness stretched out around us.
The walls were concrete, powder crumbling down as if they had been left to rot for years. The open sightlines brought a flicker of relief — and then we met the natives, who greeted us with a gurgling growl.
"Dark Goblins!"
Yeonji shouted from the front. About ten Dark Goblins had appeared, clutching crude stone axes. True to goblins that lived in packs, they meant to overwhelm us with numbers and make up for how little each of them was worth on its own.
"Prepare for combat."
At my casual call, the women around me tensed and dropped into fighting stances. Yeonji spread her feet to shoulder width and sank her upper body, coiled to spring. Sujin stretched both hands forward to aim, and Lina and Jisu behind me each took their own positions.
Jisu extended her sharp rapier far out in front of her. I had told her to fight up front alongside Yeonji.
"Got it!"
Jisu nodded and stepped forward.
"Kieeeeek!"
"Kiiiik!"
The Dark Goblins loosed a racket that was neither language nor quite a roar, then charged us with their stone axes raised. Typical of dim-witted monsters, they had no idea they didn't stand a chance.
"Let's go, Jisu!"
"Yes, unnie!"
Yeonji and Jisu kicked off the ground at the same time and burst forward. Having drilled their combination techniques together, their movements meshed as tightly as an idol group's choreography. Yeonji swung her fists; Jisu swung her sword.
Yeonji took the left, Jisu the right, and the two of them swept through the pack like erasers wiping a board clean.
"Kieeeeek!"
Every time a fist came around, a goblin's face shattered like a cracker. Teeth broke and went flying; eyeballs popped from their sockets. It looked less like a punch than a sledgehammer caving in a skull. Yeonji had hardened her fists with her ability, Material Conversion, so being on the receiving end really wasn't any different from catching a steel hammer with your face.
Slash! Slash! Slash!
"Hah! Hah! Hahh!"
The blade Jisu swung found Dark Goblin bodies with surgical precision. First stroke — they dropped their weapons. Second stroke — an arm came off. Third stroke — the head left the shoulders. She never needed more than three cuts to put a goblin down.
Her movements were as clean and exact as a computer. Film it and it would look like a single frame copied and stretched down the timeline. She slaughtered five goblins in under a minute.
"That was easy."
"Easy enough."
The fight was over in an instant. Yeonji, whose stats I had been cranking up through constant sex, was outstanding as expected — but Jisu had exceeded even my imagination. The way she carved through goblins with that cold efficiency was like watching a programmed killing machine.
Incredible talent. And if I layered the power of Power of Sex on top of that… she might even hit Rank 1.
It looked possible. I had already marked her as prey, but I found myself licking my lips at her all over again.
"Good work. We didn't even need to back you up."
I praised the two of them. Dark Goblin hearts were used as potion ingredients. I didn't particularly want to drink anything brewed from the heart of a monster this wretched, but it was material we had to collect properly all the same. Relative to how easy they were to hunt, the things fetched a decent price.
Sujin, Lina, and I — the ones who hadn't fought — cut the hearts from the Dark Goblins and harvested the materials. Leave a goblin corpse alone and it vanished on its own. We moved on. Packs of Dark Goblins turned up now and then, and we hunted them without breaking a sweat.
Light Arrow
My arrows of light flew at every goblin that came into view. I had practiced plenty in the world of Supreme Sword Heavenly Immortal, so my accuracy wasn't bad — about nine out of ten shots found their mark. Even if an arrow went wide, I could loose the next one immediately, which meant the rest of the party could stand there and watch if they wanted.
"That's amazing!"
Jisu's eyes sparkled. As a martial-arts type, she seemed to find Natural-type abilities utterly fascinating.
"You're amazing too. You sliced through those Dark Goblins like you were chopping vegetables."
"But you just stand there and kill them like you're swatting mosquitoes, oppa! You're way more amazing!"
Personally, I found swatting mosquitoes harder than chopping vegetables. An expression I couldn't quite parse. Still, having a pretty girl at my elbow gushing about how incredible I was made my shoulders puff up of their own accord. A man's unavoidable instinct.
"Look over there. That's the next floor."
Pushing on through the rather monotonous stretch of corridor, we found a staircase leading down. Everything we had been hunting so far was only the dungeon's front door. The real monsters started below.
"Let's get our stamina back here first, then we move."
Down those stairs were things far more dangerous than Dark Goblins.
The monsters that appeared on the second basement floor were still Dark Goblins. They were larger than the ones on the floor above, though, and troublesome specimens that used shamanic magic came crawling out with them.
A shaman's heart was only about half the size of a regular Dark Goblin's, but it was far superior as a potion ingredient. If the quality was good, each one easily fetched over a thousand dollars.
"From here on, stay sharp! Dark Goblin shamans use confusion hexes!"
Everyone already knew that, but I put it in their heads again anyway. I could see Jisu's grip tighten on her sword.
"I'll charge in!"
Yeonji clenched both fists and stepped forward. If the goblins on the first floor had barely topped three feet, these ones looked about five feet tall, and the axes in their hands were rusted iron. Even that much evolution, however, was nowhere near enough to stop Yeonji and Jisu.
"Kwaaaek!"
The screams weren't much different from the Dark Goblins upstairs. They still couldn't block Yeonji's fists, and they still went down to Jisu's three-cut sequence. But while the warrior goblins with their axes bought time, the shaman goblins began to dance like they'd lost their minds, weaving their hexes.
Water Arrow
Sujin loosed an arrow of water. Condensed to extreme pressure, it could have been called a water javelin without anyone arguing. Her shot punched straight through a shaman goblin's heart.
"Keihik!"
But just as the warrior goblins pushed with numbers, the shamans weren't a solo act either.
"Kiiiik!"
There were fully four shaman goblins casting. Kill one, and the rest could still finish the hex.
"I'll stop them!"
Lina stretched out her hand, and three chains burst from the ground. They surged toward the chanting shamans like snakes with a will of their own. Two successfully wrapped their targets. A warrior goblin, however, lunged in front of the third.
The chain seized the warrior instead of the shaman. Like an anaconda that had locked onto prey, it constricted the goblin's entire body. The two captured goblins died as their frames bent in directions they were never meant to bend, accompanied by a sickening crunch of bone.
"There's still one left!"
Lina shouted. But the remaining shaman had already finished its hex. Completing a motion that could have been a dance or a tantrum, it clenched a fist and cried out with a vile little smile.
"Kekekekek! Kirrrrk!"
In that instant a ringing like a mosquito's buzz amplified a hundredfold filled our ears, and the world swam.
Drags the target down to the caster's own level.
The hex a shaman goblin cast was a curse of confusion — an annoying debuff that dragged you down to its own miserable level.
"Kyaaak!"
Whether the ringing and the swimming vision had opened a gap, Yeonji screamed. Fortunately, she didn't seem badly hurt.
Light Cure
I used Light Cure, a skill that purged status ailments. Dispelling debuffs was one of a healer's critical jobs. The ability to shut down combat variables at the source was exactly why you couldn't leave a healer out of a party. The kinds of surprises you could cover with potions were limited; an outstanding healer could erase every last one. Of course, that came with the condition outstanding.
"I'm good! Counterattacking!"
Yeonji and Jisu, whose stances had broken, snapped back into their rhythm in seconds.
They calmly slaughtered the remaining warrior goblins.
When the killing was done, the warrior goblins strewn around us numbered well over twenty.
"Phew. That was close."
"It wasn't that dangerous. I expected this much."
No one was injured. We took the hearts from the fallen goblins.