Chương 84: Chapter 83: More Players, More Problems

Rayne had only been downstairs for a short while, taking Harlan's place, when a tremendous crash erupted behind him. He spun around on instinct. A massive hammerhead had smashed straight through the wall, sending chunks of stone and splintered wood spraying into the room. Rayne froze for a split second. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a goblin lunging at him. Without even thinking, he snapped out a kick and sent the creature flying backward.

The instant Rayne's attention shifted, Harlan stepped in from the side and took his place at the doorway again.

"Harlan! Hold them for a little longer." Rayne reached out and slapped him on the back.

"I'm counting on you. I've got a bigger problem to deal with." With that, his expression hardened as he fixed his gaze on the giant hammer-wielding goblin smashing through the wall on the other side. Something was wrong. He remembered it clearly. The last time they had faced the goblin swarm, the other goblins had retreated first. Only afterward had this giant hammer-wielding monster appeared. So why was it different this time...? Rayne suddenly turned toward Harlan's party.

Was it because more people had entered the rear district this time? Had that changed what happened here too? There was no time left to think about it. The hammer-wielding goblin had already smashed a hole large enough for its body to pass through. Dragging its enormous hammer behind it, it stepped straight into the building. If anything, that made Rayne feel a little relieved. Good thing they had broken through the wall into the neighboring building ahead of time.

At least Tyren would not end up trapped on the second floor again like last time, unable to get down even if he wanted to.

"Everyone! Keep your eyes on that hammer! Stay as far away from it as you can!" Before the words had even finished leaving his mouth, Rayne was already charging straight at the hammer-wielding goblin.

"Archers! Aim for the eyes! Everyone else, keep clearing out the goblins!" Scattered shouts of "Got it!" answered him, easing some of the tension in Rayne's chest. The next instant, the massive hammer came crashing straight at him. Rayne stepped sharply to the side, narrowly avoiding the hammerhead. Before the hammer had even finished falling, he sprang into the air and brought his longsword down toward the goblin's neck.

The hammer-wielding goblin immediately let go of the hammer with one hand and raised its thick arm to block. Rayne's longsword bit deep into its forearm. Blood sprayed outward, but the blade caught against the thick bone beneath the flesh. Rayne grunted, planted a foot against the goblin's chest, and kicked off, using the force to wrench his sword free as he sprang backward. He had barely opened up the distance when several sharp whistles tore through the air.

The hammer-wielding goblin jerked its head aside, avoiding two arrows coming from directly ahead. It failed to avoid the armor-piercing arrow from the side. Thk! The arrow punched straight through its cheek and burst out the other side. Rayne glanced sideways and only then realized Tyren had somehow slipped downstairs through the neighboring building.

"Nice shot, Tyren!" The hammer-wielding goblin roared in fury. It casually snapped off the arrow shaft jutting from its cheek, then ripped the remaining length out. Blood splattered everywhere. The goblin suddenly bent down and bellowed right into Rayne's face. A few foul-smelling droplets of blood even sprayed across his cheek, making him grimace. The next instant, Rayne surged forward low to the ground. His longsword went straight for the thick arm still gripping the hammer.

The moment the goblin raised its other arm to block, Rayne abruptly changed the angle of his blade. His sword dipped. The point drove straight through the goblin's thigh. The hammer-wielding goblin let out a howl of pain. It tightened its grip on the massive hammer and seemed to lose itself completely to rage, swinging the weapon wildly in every direction. The heavy hammerhead tore through the room again and again.

Rotten tables and chairs exploded into splinters beneath its blows, and one backswing even smashed a huge crater into the ceiling. Seeing that it had gone berserk, Rayne made no attempt to close in. He kept his eyes fixed on the hammer's movements while quickly checking on everyone else from the corner of his eye. To his relief, not a single goblin had managed to break through Harlan and the others' defensive line. Working with them had definitely been the right call.

As the seconds passed, the hammer-wielding goblin finally began to calm down. During its rampage, Tessa and Dane had not been idle either. Arrow after arrow had buried itself in the goblin's body. Blood continued pouring from the wounds, making it obvious that these were no ordinary arrowheads. As the creature's movements gradually slowed, Rayne lowered his stance slightly. His right hand tightened around the hilt of his longsword. His gaze locked onto the goblin's throat and the backs of both ankles.

Then, at the moment it finally planted the hammerhead against the floor and began gulping down air— A streak of silver tore across the room. In the next instant, nine bursts of silver sword-light erupted across the hammer-wielding goblin's body one after another! Its massive frame went rigid. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Then its legs buckled, and it crashed heavily onto both knees.

The goblin turned its head in confusion, as if only then noticing the blood pouring from the backs of both ankles. The tendons had already been severed cleanly by the blade. And that was not all. Two deep slashes had been carved across its chest, blood streaming steadily down from the wounds. Rayne had already appeared behind it. He took two heavy breaths before slowly straightening. This was the first time Rayne had ever truly used a Combat Art himself.

It was a little disappointing that he had failed to land the strike on its throat as planned. Still, severing the tendons at both ankles and leaving the thing unable to move was more than good enough. Rayne was just considering what to do with it when a dark figure suddenly dropped through the hole in the ceiling. In the next instant, two short blades swept through clean arcs and drove precisely into the hammer-wielding goblin's eyes. The figure even kept hold of the hilts and gave both blades two vicious twists.

The goblin did not even have time to scream. Its enormous body crashed face-first onto the floor and went completely still. Rayne focused on the newcomer. It was Colvin from Harlan's party. Colvin pulled both short blades free from the goblin's eyes. Looking at the filth coating the steel, he clicked his tongue in disgust before finally turning toward Rayne.

"Captain Rayne, thanks for the opening. I finally got a proper chance to show what I can do." His eyes, usually narrowed into smiling slits, opened slightly. A trace of keen interest showed within them.

"If I'm not mistaken, that move just now was the Combat Art Silver Flash, wasn't it?" Rayne blinked, then nodded.

"We can talk about that when we have time. Let's finish clearing the goblins first." Colvin nodded repeatedly with a smile. Then he wrapped the two blood-covered short blades in a piece of white cloth and tucked them into the small pouch at the back of his waist. In their place, he drew several throwing knives and began dealing with the goblins still pouring toward the building. After the hammer-wielding goblin fell, the endless stream of goblins noticeably began to thin out.

Rayne and the others could finally catch their breath. Some time later, Doro fired a bolt from her hand crossbow straight through the final goblin's skull. She instinctively reached toward the pouch at the back of her waist for another bolt. Her hand found nothing. Doro paused, then looked around. Only then did she realize that, without anyone noticing, they had already cleared every goblin nearby. Tyren dropped heavily to the floor.

Even the shortbow he almost never let out of his hands had been tossed carelessly aside. Serin walked over slowly, crouched beside him, and handed him her waterskin.

"Thanks! I'm dying of thirst." Watching from a short distance away, Rayne could not help laughing. He pulled a clean strip of cloth from his belt pouch, lowered his head, and slowly began wiping the remaining blood and grease from his blade. That was when Harlan and Colvin came over together and asked about the Silver Flash. Rayne had no intention of keeping it to himself. It was hardly a secret in the first place.

"As long as you're an adventurer based in Blackstone Town and haven't committed any serious wrongdoing, Guildmaster Greer is willing to teach you this Combat Art." Colvin stroked the sparse beard along his chin and hummed thoughtfully for a moment.

"No wonder. I was wondering where you learned it." His eyes narrowed slightly.

"So after the swordsman known as the Silver Flash left, he ended up living in seclusion out here?"

"The Silver Flash?" Tyren tilted his head.

"I think I've heard the Guildmaster mention that before..." The next second, he turned toward Colvin with an excited look.

"Hey, mister. You know the Guildmaster too?" Colvin smiled and shook his head.

"No." He paused before slowly adding,"I've crossed blades with adventurers who could use Silver Flash plenty of times before. That's why it looked familiar the moment I saw it." Tyren's expression immediately stiffened. It looked as though a rather unpleasant possibility had just occurred to him. The moment Colvin saw his expression, his whole face fell. He hurriedly waved both hands, even opening those eyes of his as wide as they could go. They were still pretty small, though...

"Don't get the wrong idea! I just like finding people to spar with!"

"... You spar with Silver-rank adventurers?" Tyren stared at him blankly.

"Aren't you only Bronze rank, mister?" At that, Colvin immediately returned to his usual smiling expression. He raised one index finger and wagged it lightly in front of Tyren.

"Well, there just aren't many people at Bronze rank worth fighting!" Harlan's face fell too. He muttered,"That part is true. Ever since you joined us, is there anyone in this party you haven't beaten at least once...?" Colvin burst out laughing and slapped Harlan hard on the shoulder.

"Come on! Don't take it so hard. Haven't you all picked up plenty of tips for dealing with assassins?"

"... You mean tips for surviving them?" Colvin laughed again. A wave of laughter quickly spread through the room. ◆ ◆ ◆ Owen hovered blankly above the stone platform, staring at the light screen in front of him. He really had not expected Rayne and the others to improve this much in only a few days. When he first saw them rush into the building and immediately start smashing through walls and moving furniture around, Owen had been completely baffled.

He had even wondered what the hell Rayne and the others were doing. Why waste time knocking down perfectly good walls? Now, apparently, Rayne and the others had simply been thinking faster than he had.

"If I hired Rayne as a trap consultant and had him teach me how to set them up..." Owen tried imagining the scene. His entire core immediately started shuddering. Having a veteran adventurer personally design traps meant to screw over other adventurers... No matter how he looked at it, that was a little too messed up, even for him.

"And what if he ends up better at it than I am? I might as well give him my job!" The idea survived for less than a minute before Owen shot it dead without hesitation. Besides, a dungeon core hiring humans as employees was probably a little too ridiculous even for him. Still, now that more people had entered the rear district this time, the difficulty had increased along with them. But the increase did not seem nearly as dramatic as Owen had expected.

"No, wait! Is it just because they're too strong, so the difficulty increase doesn't look that impressive?" Owen thought about it. If he replaced these two parties with a giant crowd of adventurers who had no basic teamwork whatsoever and shoved them into the rear district, they would just be lining up to get wiped. There was no way a mob like that could perform this far above expectations the way Rayne's and Harlan's parties had.

"But... I could probably add another layer to the difficulty. If a party's overall strength comes out too high, I could throw in another Brutehammer Goblin or something." Owen bobbed up and down over the stone platform, chuckling to himself. Then he tossed the idea onto his high-priority notes, planning to study whether it was worth actually implementing once he had some free time.

"Still, I really do need more samples before I can judge properly." Owen swayed thoughtfully from side to side for a moment. Then an enormous imaginary exclamation mark practically popped into existence above his core.

"Hehehe. Why don't I just have those NPCs issue exploration missions for ten-person parties?" Wouldn't that give him a whole pile of free dungeon playtesters? Just as planned! The moment Owen settled on the idea, his core burst into a riot of colors for the first time in ages, lighting up the entire Core Chamber like a party.

"Heh. Looks like I'm getting better and better at this!" Rayne and the others had decided to stay inside the building and rest for the moment before continuing their exploration, so Owen minimized that view again. Break time was over! This poor, overworked Dungeon Master had to get back to work and finish building the dungeon he still had not completed! Owen shifted the view back to the new church ruins.

This place was already well beyond the hundred-meter restriction around Graywood Town, which meant he could finally build here without holding anything back. Last time, all he had done was excavate a single underground level beneath the church ruins. Now came the part where he actually fleshed the place out.

"What should I put in here?" Since it was meant to tie into the bells of Graywood Town, naturally the monsters here needed some kind of similar theme as well.

"After all, this is the dungeon that successfully swallowed Graywood Town!" Muttering to himself, Owen embedded an enormous bell in the ground at an angle in front of the dungeon entrance, almost completely hiding the passage behind it. That way, when adventurers entered the church, the first thing they would see was the huge bell lodged crookedly in the ground. Only once they approached would they realize the true entrance was hidden behind it.

"Hehehe! Now that's what I call proper dramatic staging!" Then Owen took another careful look at the first underground level. Something still felt off. It was not tall enough. The entire place felt cramped. So he pulled out the terrain tools and dug the floor another level deeper. He laid down blue-gray stone tiles, then raised rows of carved stone columns along either side, styled after the temples of ancient Rome. Beside the columns hung rows of braziers.

Ghostly green flames burned silently inside them, casting broad, wavering shadows across the walls. The entire first underground level immediately took on a much darker, eerier atmosphere.

"Yes! And right at the start, there'll be a High Silver-level boss blocking the way! Only after they take it on will the two stone doors beside it open!" Owen finished enclosing the area with proper walls, then hung an old chandelier from the center of the ceiling, one that had long since gone dark. Finally, he added a thick layer of dust and countless fine cracks across the walls and columns, making the whole place look as though it had genuinely been abandoned for countless years.

After working for quite a while longer, Owen finally finished designing the stone tablet fragments the adventurers would need to collect. Then he stuffed the maze with a whole pile of nasty traps and even built the stone pedestal where the tablet fragments would eventually be fitted.

"Heh. That's the preliminary construction done!" Owen surveyed his handiwork with satisfaction.

"I still haven't designed the boss yet, but the adventurers probably won't reach this place anytime soon." He casually glanced toward the light screen in the upper-right corner. The next second, a gleaming bald head filled the view. Owen's entire core flashed brightly.

"Oh, right! I almost forgot! Once they repel the first goblin wave, Basque comes out on his own!"

"Hurry, hurry! Graywood Town's first co-op dungeon run is about to begin!"