Goblins Are Weak? (3)

First, a demonstration from a seasoned scouting instructor.

"Left from here. Mm-hm. Careful of the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠trap there. Goblins are smarter than you'd give them credit for, you know — they can even set traps of their own."

Guided by Regressor Arin, Eunho and present-day Arin made their way along the path.

Oh, of course, with the viewers' eyes to mind, the two of them had to put on a show of searching for the way at intervals. She'd already done all the work for them — tagging along like this felt exactly like riding a bus.

"Hehe. You could find it yourself anyway, Eunho, couldn't you? Experience is nice and all, but I hate wasting time on pointless stuff like this."

Fair enough.

Eunho found it easy to agree. With only a little focus, the out-of-place marks scattered around them came into view for him as well.

For instance, over there — faint scratch marks on a tree trunk. At a glance they might pass for a beast's claw marks, but they were shallow, and though dim, five distinct lines had been raked into the bark. Goblin signposting, in other words.

And over there. The blades of grass are bent flat. That'd be their main route.

"Exactly."

On they walked. A mountain climb that meant shoving through dense undergrowth drained the body far faster than flat ground ever could, but the training the two of them had endured was more than enough to keep this much from wearing them down. And with the vitality potions they'd bought at the Unmanned Shop, there was even less reason to flag.

Thank goodness for Arin, honestly. With her keeping buffs up nonstop, we could afford that many more vitality potions.

Vitality potions did exactly what the name promised — they flooded the body with vigor.

A healing potion of equal price would mend a fresh wound to a certain degree; a vitality potion delivered precisely that much kick in energy. That was all one could expect of it.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Of course, with their resident holy-power prodigy — the saintess of this era, Arin — on the team, they could skimp on healing potions and pour those coins into vitality ones instead.

Then again, doesn't her holy power ever run dry? She's been burning it nonstop since the 2nd Floor.

"Can't you see her holy power pouch? She's just superior. Better than everyone else. That's the whole secret."

Their Regressor Arin had now taken to mocking even her past self.

How on earth had the girl ended up like this?

"Grr! Isn't this all because you refuse to see her as a woman?! Turn your head! Face it! Don't you dare lie about your own feelings! You like her too — admit it!"

Having long since grasped the proper posture of anyone who streams — the principle of Don't Feed the Troll — Eunho slickly brushed off the habitual teasing and lifted his gaze to the scene ahead.

Wow. This is definitely different from the monsters so far. They've even posted sentries.

A single cave opened up before them. Two goblins stood blocking its entrance, heads swiveling as they scanned their surroundings — on the lookout for intruders or prey.

But wasn't this supposed to be the Mountain of Green Skins? Why were the things holing up in a cave?

Just as Eunho tilted his head, a gem of wisdom arrived from Regressor Arin.

"...Whew. Right. This is why they say the Tower properly begins on the 4th Floor. Everything up to now was merely for the sake of growth — from here on out, you can really die."

Her voice sank, bleak and heavy.

Death.

That word — one a regressor was bound to have lived through firsthand, or at the very least witnessed and heard tell of — was what had settled over her heart like a stone.

"Be careful, Eunho."

Got it. Don't worry.

Hearing her voice, Eunho answered back with deliberate, exaggerated cheer.

He teased her for being a clown and a goofball often enough, but he didn't dislike seeing that bright side of her one bit. Her personality — such a contrast to present-day Arin's — was, in its own way, delightful and endearing. Which was exactly why he hoped she would never lose it.

"Arin. You ready?"

"Yep. Just say the word."

At the sound of present-day Arin's brimming confidence, Eunho broke into a faint smile.

"Then — now."

No sooner had the words left his mouth than he felt holy power seeping into his body. Strength, stamina, agility — a buff spanning all three pillars of a warrior soaked through him, guiding his senses up onto a higher plane.

Stats that still lingered at the very lowest grade.

And yet, draped in her buff, he was etching a higher order of body into himself — and Eunho's talent, unnoticed even by him, was following that lead, pulling his physique up toward that higher dimension along with it.

Just a little more.

A little longer, and his stats would climb.

With that conviction, Eunho hammered his foot into the earth.

The instant he kicked off, his body trampled the empty air and accelerated a second time.

In a blink he stood face-to-face with one of the goblins, his body already twisting, his leg carving a full arc.

Crack—!

Its neck bent at a crooked angle, and one goblin died without so much as a scream.

"Graahh... urk."

The moment the other one tried to let loose a roar, Eunho snatched up a nearby stone and hurled it straight into its open mouth.

Strike!

With its mouth plugged, that one was promptly sent off to keep its friend company as well. It would have been lonely traveling alone, after all.

"Whew. I think you can come out now."

No presence stirred against his mana sense.

At Eunho's beckoning hand, Arin emerged from the brush, plucking the leaves clinging to her body free one by one.

And every time she moved, the enormous cloak draped over her kept pressing close, tracing every curve beneath it...

"Well? To die for, right?"

Apparently, after enough time on the receiving end of habitual teasing, his eyes had learned to wander all on their own.

Eunho shook off the thought and turned to Arin.

"How much holy power do you have left?"

"Hmm, if we're talking percentages? I'd say about eighty percent? Something like that's still left."

That was a genuinely staggering amount.

How had she kept using holy power without pause since the 2nd Floor, and still have a full eighty percent of her total capacity in reserve?

His traitorous eyes tried to drift downward yet again, so Eunho slapped his own cheek and shook his head.

"? What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"Like it's nothing. Come on, be honest with yourself~"

Regressor Arin floated over, propped both arms on his shoulder, and whispered by his ear — a voice sickeningly sweet.

Good grief. He who stays close to ink turns black, as they say — with a she-devil at his side, it was starting to rub off on him.

"That buff just now was nice, by the way? How many can you stack?"

Eunho asked, if only to force his mind elsewhere. Honestly, back in the days when he'd had no mana, he hadn't cared about anything, and so he'd known nothing about the people around him.

She was part of his party's fighting strength now — he needed to know.

Arin answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Stacking the same buff works up to three times. But for you, Eunho, two might be the limit."

"Because of my stats?"

"Yep. Any more than that and your body won't hold up. Probably."

"Okay."

"If I layer different buffs instead, I can cover every stat."

Pumping every stat there was.

Hearing it spoken aloud, it sounded so easy. Could hardly have been simpler.

But that was only because it came out of her mouth. The viewers' reactions were another story entirely.

They were right: in the holy power department, Arin was a special asset. Things an ordinary Awakener wouldn't even dare contemplate, she spoke of with that much ease.

But Regressor Arin, displeased by something, clicked her tongue and shook her head.

"Tsk, tsk. She's still miles away. She ought to be able to seep a buff into every last muscle fiber. And failing that, at the very least lay buffs precisely and quickly on exactly the parts that need them."

Is that even doable?

"Why wouldn't it be? I did it."

The tutelage of a former 34th-floor Tower ranker stung like anything.

Unbelievable. When she said she'd done it herself, there was nothing he could say in rebuttal.

Still, we're only on the 4th Floor. Aren't you expecting a bit much?

"You've got to bank the fundamentals, Eunho. Later on, teach my past self some hand-to-hand combat. Once she learns how to use her body, she'll understand how her muscles work too. And then the way she delivers buffs will evolve a little further on its own."

Will do.

"Grappling would be even better. Two bodies rolling around on a mat..."

I'll do things my way.

Don't-Feed-the-Troll mode fully engaged, Eunho shook his head.

"Let's head in."

"Mm."

"By the way, Arin — could you make your barrier art work on only part of the body?"

"A barrier? Hmm... what exactly do you mean?"

"Like wrapping it separately around just the knees, or just the elbows. That sort of thing."

Arin, who couldn't see the chat window, tilted her head — then nodded all the same.

"Yeah, I think I can. As long as you give me a signal."

"Okay. Then let's go in."

And so the two of them entered the dungeon (it was not a dungeon) — the goblin den!

A cave pitch-black through and through.

Less suffocating than the den of the cave wolves, but humid all the same.

Artificial terrain, with passages bored every which way like the workings of an ant colony.

In a place like this, unfurling your mana sense far and wide was actually a losing move.

The mana drain would turn brutal.

The principle behind sensing presence with mana was simple enough: the mana you breathed out spread like ripples, brushed against everything nearby, and rebounded. What came back told you what was there.

But in terrain like this, far more of it would ricochet away — and the drain on his mana would grow punishing.

Eunho hadn't been accumulating mana for all that long. Which meant the reserves in his body ran thinner than most people's.

Almost heartbreaking, really. I could go for an elixir right about now.

"Just make it up to the 2nd Stratum. I'll rattle off every last location where elixirs are hidden."

Deal.

Setting the regressor's rock-solid promise of support behind him, Eunho vented mana only toward the front and swept it for presence. The goblins he turned up numbered three in all.

The moment he marked them, he called on Arin for barriers.

"For now, just wrap them around my fists — nowhere else."

"Okay."

"And keep your eyes on what I do. I have a feeling you'll need to learn hand-to-hand combat later, too."

Present-day Arin caught the meaning of that at once. Something her future self had asked for, no doubt.

Short of that, there was no reason on earth for Eunho to bring up such a thing out of nowhere.

"Here I go."

With the translucent golden membrane wound around his hands like hand wraps, Eunho rapped his two fists together — thump, thump — and drove his foot into the ground.

This was a fight meant to be seen, so he left Wind Step unused. Textbook form instead.

Launched off the earth and flying at his opponent like a bolt, Eunho abruptly stamped down hard. Then came the rotation. Hips wrenching around, he drove a punch out with his full weight behind it.

Everyone watching was certain that would be the end of one goblin.

It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wasn't.

"Well, look at this little bastard?"

The instant his fist shot out, the goblin had abruptly raised its arms — and taken a proper guard.

So now, on top of gym-bro goblins, the Tower was rolling out fighter goblins too.

"Fun."

The corner of Eunho's mouth curled up in a grin.