Chapter 85: Monk of Steel
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 85: Monk of Steel
Ingelam, the wizard once considered the greatest prodigy of the Magic University, was a master of disguise.
When he truly committed to his disguise magic, he was nearly impossible to find.
And yet…
“Every time I use a disguise today, things go wrong.”
A short sigh escaped him. How many times had it been already? First, when the Remaining Party Check Card led to a clash with the dwarves’ 4th-floor party; then when he ran into Lizard from Public Security Team 2; then after falling for Raincoat’s magic show in the steel mill; and now, yet again.
Truly, this elf archer’s sharpness was extraordinary. It was true when she’d sniped the druid with a three-arrow shot, and it was true now.
“I thought she was just an idiot back in Flandre.”
Ingelam dropped his disguise.
From beneath the shell of Lilweed emerged the party leader of the Poacher team.
“Ingelam!”
The priest flinched in surprise.
“It’s Ingelam!”
As a bonus, the barbarian fighter from Ingelam’s own party also jumped in shock.
He hadn’t known either.
“Thank goodness!”
The barbarian threw his arms around Ingelam in a crushing hug, expressing his delight, then pulled him behind his back.
From behind that massive torso, Ingelam spoke.
“Can’t you just play along? It’s not like I’m trying to hurt you. Huh?”
“…”
“In a situation like this, shouldn’t we all be working together to take care of the special boss first? It’ll be difficult for you to take it down on your own.”
“We can handle it.”
Aimus’s calm reply made Ingelam’s brow furrow.
“You can handle it?”
“Before we entered the 4th floor, Caleb told us. He said that even if we were forced to fight a special boss, there was a way to defeat it.”
Then why were you all scattered and in disarray in the steelmaking chamber, unable to defeat the bosses?
It was because the situation had spiraled so far out of control that they couldn’t use their prepared strategy. The Blacksmith and the Golden Golem had appeared in a surprise attack simultaneously, and with Ingelam’s party also on the scene, they couldn’t focus solely on the special bosses.
If they poured all their strength into that fight, wouldn’t Ingelam’s party just attack them while their skills were on cooldown and wipe them out?
“That’s why we chose to escape the situation first.”
“Nonsense.”
A smirk crept onto Ingelam’s lips.
“If you could take down the Golden Golem or the Blacksmith, that would mean you’re at least at the level of 5th-floor adventurers. Does that make any sense?”
“Then how about you 5th-floor adventurers verify it for us?”
Aimus aimed his iron staff at the barbarian.
“Whether our skills are on a 5th-floor level.”
“Puhahaha!”
The barbarian’s laughter boomed through the air.
“I like this monk! A man ought to have this much guts!”
“Ah, that’s enough. Everyone, calm down.”
Ingelam said, his voice laced with irritation.
“I apologize for pretending to be Lilweed. But if I had shown this face, would you have listened to me?”
“…”
“I was serious about finding our other party members. I was planning to find them one by one with this bat.”
“And once your numbers were more favorable, you planned to kill us?” the priest pointed out.
“If we had run into the Golden Golem or the Blacksmith, you would have incited us to fight and then quietly eliminated us, right?”
“…”
Ingelam smiled slyly at Aimus and Yernil.
“Only the priest,” he said.
“I was planning to kill him. I can’t let constables who know my face leave alive. But, Yernil. And you, Monk.”
Ingelam began to persuade the two.
“Do you remember the offer I made to Caleb earlier?”
“…”
“I said we should work together. I was serious. We can become the next Blackdog. Ha. The timing for this offer should have been right after we culled the Neko team. A shame.”
If he had managed to stay hidden as Lilweed and wipe out Neko’s party, he could have seized firm control of the situation.
If Caleb couldn’t be recruited, he could just be killed.
“The timing isn’t ideal, but I trust you’ll make a wise choice.”
He pointed at Yernil.
“You’re quite sharp-witted yourself, aren’t you?”
Yernil flinched.
“M-Me?”
“Yernil, don’t fall for it,” Aimus said.
“Of course not!”
From behind Aimus’s back, Yernil drew her bowstring.
“What a pity.”
The battle between adventurers began in an instant, a fatal exchange of blows occurring in a split second.
Fwip!
The arrow fired from the elf archer’s hand drew a parabola over the barbarian’s head.
It was an arcing shot meant to snipe Ingelam. But…
Clang!
The 5th-floor barbarian fighter didn’t miss it. He jumped in place and caught the arrow with his shield like an outfielder catching a fly ball.
In that moment, the odds had already shifted.
In Ingelam’s favor.
The wizard instantly grasped the scenario for victory and savored a small taste of joy.
‘Incompetent fools.’
Caleb was a smart wizard, but he was overconfident. They could take down the Golden Golem or the Labyrinth on their own? Utter nonsense.
And the monk and the elf archer had made a fatal mistake.
Hunting monsters on the 4th floor was a completely different story from fighting other adventurers.
How much experience could Labyrinth novices like them possibly have in adventurer-versus-adventurer combat?
That’s what Ingelam wanted to ask.
On the other hand, Ingelam, a 5th-floor wizard, had slaughtered countless adventurers during his time as a poacher and plunderer.
That’s what he wanted to teach them.
“Ground-Surge Battering Ram.”
There was just one thing that bothered him.
That iron staff monk.
‘I’ve never seen a type like him before.’
Shouldn’t a monk use fist weapons? And wasn’t the way a monk explored the Labyrinth to evade monster attacks with mystical movements and then overwhelm them with a storm of counterattacks?
But an iron staff monk…
Caleb was certainly a peculiar wizard. This was the first time he had seen a party with such a frontline.
‘Should I kill the monk first?’
The unfamiliarity and uncertainty of it all bothered him. It was best to eliminate him early.
Ingelam directed the Ground-Surge Battering Ram toward the monk. A sharp, hard spear of rock shot toward the monk like an awl.
“Shield of Protection.”
The shield cast by the priest enveloped the monk, but that didn’t matter either.
Crack!
The barbarian, having jumped, brought his axe down on the monk.
The monk’s iron staff, held horizontally above him, blocked the barbarian’s axe, but the shield shattered from the impact of the two weapons.
The Ground-Surge Battering Ram rising from below easily broke through and embedded itself in the monk’s chest.
Crunch!
Just like that.
‘…?’
But the monk didn’t fall.
The skill ‘Steel Veins’.
The true value of the iron staff Strength Monk, the frontline I used to clear the Master difficulty in turn-based mode, slowly begins to shine after acquiring that skill.
The lore is as follows:
After completing profound training on Dalai Mountain, a monk's mental energy is channeled to the heart, circulating through the blood to make every blood vessel in the body as strong as steel.
From the aorta down to the capillaries in the dermis, just beneath the skin’s surface.
In terms of game mechanics, it's an ability that grants additional defense equal to one's armor value for a number of turns equal to the number of enemies, starting from the moment of attack.
If you pair this with the right special abilities, magic equipment, and buffs, you can witness an immortal who can rampage through the Deep Layer, shrugging off concentrated fire from multiple enemies.
That’s how I cleared the Master difficulty with a Strength Monk.
At this point, having acquired that skill at the fountain, there’s probably no frontline on the 4th floor tougher than Aimus.
“Besides, Neko’s team has a priest, so if Aimus takes the front, we can even take down the Blacksmith or the Golden Golem.”
“Then… are you going to kill all of Ingelam’s party?” Lilweed asked, glancing around nervously.
“If they don’t surrender, we’ll have no choice.”
We were leaving the blast furnace and heading toward the steelmaking chamber.
“But do we really have to go looking like this?” Lilweed asked again, still nervous.
“Yes.”
We had used Lilweed’s mass disguise magic to alter our appearances.
“What if we get attacked…?”
“That’s why we’re scouting with Watcher every time we move to a new room.”
Lilweed was the Golden Golem.
And I was the Blacksmith.
The iron staff, brought down from mid-air with the skill Smashing Gaia, was like a hydraulic press from the steel mill.
CRASH!
The barbarian dodged it instead of blocking with his shield because he had felt it instinctively.
If he had tried to block it, his forearms would have been shattered right through the shield.
‘Impossible.’
In all his years, from the day he first entered the 1st floor of the Labyrinth until now, Ingelam had never been more shocked by anything he had seen or experienced.
‘What is this!’
That party was definitely strange.
‘How has a guy like this remained unknown until now?’
The party’s frontline was, quite literally, insane.
It was just that the wizard Caleb had become so famous as the Magic University’s super rookie that the others had been overlooked.
There was the cunning(?) elf archer who had perfectly feigned foolishness while simultaneously planting three arrows in the druid.
There was the rogue, whose allegiance was a mystery—was he human or monster, with the Labyrinth Master’s seal on his forehead? And if human, was he an adventurer or a plunderer?
But now, an even more shocking figure had appeared.
BANG!
CRACK!
Staff techniques that overwhelmed the barbarian.
Strength on par with a 5th-floor adventurer.
That was…
‘The Power of Radiance!’
The priest’s buff had been cast earlier. That’s why his strength matched the barbarian’s. But still, for a monk to have such power?
And how…
‘Is that even possible?’
The axe struck the monk’s shoulder, but the blade didn’t sink in. Only a single drop of blood trickled down.
“Sanctuary of Fair Trade!”
To make matters worse, the priest cast an additional blessing.
It was an area-of-effect blessing that offered up his past prayers to Nathaniel as a price to grant healing and buffs within a certain range.
“Ingelam!”
The barbarian, gradually being pushed back by the monk’s staff work, roared.
A volley of arrows was raining down on Ingelam.
“Magic Shield.”
Ingelam deployed a defensive spell from his Tier 1 slot.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
As he blocked the arrows with the magic shield summoned at the tip of his wand, Ingelam changed his strategy.
‘I have to take out the priest first.’
Killing the monk was impossible right now.
His absurd defense was, firstly, due to high-level armor; secondly, due to the priest’s blessing; and thirdly, because the monk himself had activated a defensive skill Ingelam didn’t know.
That trifecta had created a monster that could shrug off the axe of a 5th-floor barbarian. But if the effect was that powerful, its duration couldn’t be long.
He had to hold out until then. Pouring magic on the monk was a waste of power.
It was better to attack the enemy’s rear first.
“Sculpting Shards.”
Ingelam swung his wand fiercely through the air.
A type of air magic, Sculpting Shards was one of Ingelam’s signature skills, unleashing five consecutive, sharply honed magical blades to suppress an enemy, but…
Poof!
Suddenly, a giant magical parasol unfurled from the tip of the monk’s iron staff.
“Fuck. What the hell is this now…”
The parasol absorbed all the incoming shard blades.
Fwoosh!
And from behind the parasol, an arcing arrow flew.
CRASH!
The barbarian jumped and caught the arrow just as before, but this time, the monk gave him no opening.
As the barbarian fell after blocking the arrow, the monster charged, aiming his iron staff like a spear.
And…
“Th-This can’t be…”
The shield shattered!
The barbarian himself seemed to be in considerable shock, staring blankly at his tingling, empty hand.
It was true that the shield had already been cracked after taking several arrows.
‘But can it really break this easily?’
Reeling from one shock after another, Ingelam couldn’t escape his confusion. The monk swung his iron staff.
CRACK!
The barbarian took the blow with his body and was sent flying.
“This is your karma.”
Byullant’s Hammer had modified the Steadfast Mantra skill into the Mantra of Karma.
Allowing it to debuff the enemy’s defense.