Chapter 38. Event Dungeon (1)
Ren bought the battle vouchers in bulk. He seemed to be the same type of person as me, as he preferred not to buy equipment or consumables. As a result, he had gathered quite a bit of gold. Even as he used all of it up because he met the wrong person, he did not seem to mind.
A look of resolve could be seen on his face.
“I finally met someone who would put in effort for me. If I don’t believe in you, I don’t deserve to call myself Ren!”
Did Ren have to put in an exclamation mark every other sentence? He really was hotheaded.
“Kuk… Take it, shopkeeper. In exchange, I’ll take those vouchers!”
“Yes, yes. Thank you, customer. Come again!”
The scene of Ren buying battle vouchers looked like exchanging money for chips at a casino. Luckily, with me around, he would always hit the jackpot.
“Loretta, I’m almost out of battle vouchers too. Can you give me 30 more?”
“Yes, Shin-nim. 30, right? That will be 70,000 gold total.”
Strange. For some reason, the discount rate was higher for me. I was thankful for it but unfortunately, Ren picked up on her words.
“Eh? Shopkeeper, isn’t the number wrong? 30 vouchers should be…”
“Customer, it’s 70,000 gold. For Shin-nim, that is.”
Loretta exerted an intimidating aura with a smile. However, that wasn’t enough to prevent stupid Ren.
“Then, shouldn’t you give it to me for that price too? I gave you 4,000 gold per voucher.”
“Huu. It seems customer isn’t very knowledgeable about the Floor Shop yet.”
“What do you mean? Shouldn’t the price be the same?”
Loretta stared at Ren with her smile, then laughed. Her smile was so scary that I was afraid it would appear in my dreams.
“Shin-nim is a premium member, and premium members can buy items for a cheaper price. Do you understand? As expected of someone Shin-nim brought, you are dense.”
“Mmm? Premium? So that was it…”
No, there’s no such thing. I’ve never heard of it before either.
Wanting to make the two idiots stop talking, I quickly took out the gold.
“Here, 70,000 gold. As always, thank you, Loretta.”
“… Hurry up and go do your raid. Being thanked by Shin-nim gives me chills.”
Like the saying went, women’s hearts were as fickle as the weather. After she happily sold battle vouchers for a cheap price, Loretta’s mood seemed to have turned for the worse as she tried to chase me away with a flushed face. Dejected, I left the Floor Shop wondering if a day would come when Loretta and I would be totally unreserved around each other. Suddenly, Ren asked me a question.
“Are you dating the shopkeeper?”
It took me a moment to process what he said. After standing around as if I suffered from a lag, I barely managed to reply.
“… What?”
“No matter how I look at it, that was a lover’s quarrel.”
Our conversation from just now? I suddenly thought of a possibility. Ren certainly had a masculine face and a healthy body. But…
“Ren, have you been single your entire life?”
“H-How did you know?”
I was right. I could tell because I was the same. Damn it, I didn’t want to relate to him like this!
“You think any man and woman talking friendly are in a relationship, right?”
“Huk!”
“If you see a girl staring at you, you fix your hair and think about what to say when she starts walking toward you, right?”
“Huk!”
I planned to continuously tease Ren as we walked to the boss room. But because I felt like I was tormenting myself, I stopped.
Although I didn’t tell Ren yet, only he and I would be fighting the boss. To completely crush his overly competitive spirit, just sparring with me wasn’t enough. Plus, I had to take lesson fees as well. I couldn’t work for free, could I?
That’s why…
“Lion Striiiiike!”
“That idiot’s doing it again.”
“Shishik! Die, Human!”
Ren who was in charge of the Lizard Knight’s backside bravely lunged at Lizard Knight’s tail flying toward him. I was like Sancho Panza watching Don Quixote tilting at windmills1. With a wishful expression, I prayed for him to return alive. At the same time, I stabbed the Lizard Knight with my Silver Spear to prevent him from focusing on his tail.
“Kuaaak, Human!”
“Yeah, I’m a human!”
After the Lizard Knight sent Ren flying, he rushed toward me. I first threw him off with a light sidestep, and made him fall by making him trip on my spear. Then, I stabbed at his neck. Although my spear carried bountiful mana, it was only enough to break a few scales and damage him lightly. As expected of a Floor Master. His defense was nothing to scoff at.
“Kuak!”
“Whoa, don’t suddenly get up! You almost scared the crap out of me!”
I quickly jumped back and dodged his counterattack. Whenever I saw an opening, I attacked him. This fast-paced switch between offense and defense continued until the Lizard Knight raised his spear to use his earthquake attack. This time, either because he received a bigger shock or because there were no healers to help him, Ren had not gotten up. As such, I was able to smoothly use Tempest to send the Lizard Knight’s spear flying.
“Kuk!”
“If you lost your weapon, you need to attack me without it! Don’t just stand around! No, wait, why am I lecturing you, not Ren!?”
It was a piece of cake to toy with the Lizard Knight who had lost his spear. This time, I didn’t even give him the opportunity to use Dragon Skin.
Once when I defeated it alone and once when I defeated with party members. Using these two opportunities, I memorized the change in his stance when he was about to use Dragon Skin. Now, whenever I saw him getting into that stance, I delivered a critical blow to prevent him from using Dragon Skin.
It was only later that I found out it had a technical term called Skill Cancelling. Ellos, who explained it to me, blabbered on about it being a legendary secret technique or whatever, but I had long stopped listening to him.
“Kuaaak! A mere human dares to attack this Lizard Knight! Kuk!”
“For a lizard, you sure know how to talk.”
After piercing his neck with Heroic Strike added with Divine Speed, I murmured leisurely. I called Ren who was sent flying after being unable stop himself from charging at the Lizard Knight’s tail.
“It’s over, so get up!”
“Ku…. I-I hit my head.”
“At least you’re tough. I was thinking I liked the feeling I was getting in my hand…”
“Can you repeat that?”
“Wow, look at the rewards!”
I blatantly ignored Ren’s question and looked at the reward list with just two items. Then, I unconsciously grinned from ear to ear. The item I was waiting for had finally appeared.
[1. Muscle Strengthening Elixir
2. Lizard Knight’s Iron Boots]
In the second raid, where I brought in nine other people, I wondered why an elixir-type item did not drop. Until now, no matter how badly the other people did, my achievements were enough to make elixir items drop. However, that wasn’t the case for the second Lizard Knight raid. I wondered what I was missing.
The answer was simple. I wasn’t missing anything. In fact, I had too many. Too many of what you ask?
People. It was people. With four people dying, there were only 6 of us left to get rewards. Even then, we had too many people to bring out a rare item. The solution was simple. I just had to lower the number even more.
What caught my attention then was Ren. He had the guts to pounce on a Floor Master, and he had the strength to back it up. Of course, he was still a problematic explorer who was lacking in techniques. This time, my brain was uncharacteristically clever. I formed a plan where both Ren and I benefitted.
“Alright, Ren. I’ll take the reward as promised.”
“Uuu, I do have a net gain of 1,000 gold, but…”
“It’s the lesson fee.”
After taking the Muscle Strengthening Elixir, I received the Iron Boots from Ren. Ren bought Floor Master Battle Vouchers for 4,000 gold each. With the 5,000 gold he gained from the raid, he was earning 1,000 gold without doing much of anything. Not to mention, I was personally training him and preventing him from dying.
As for me, I could shorten my Floor Master grind by receiving two rewards every time. It really was the perfect plan.
There was only one thing I didn’t take into consideration. It was that Loretta would sell the battle vouchers for 4,000 gold. I expected Ren to make 2,000 gold, but now that he was only earning 1,000 gold, it felt a bit weird. Of course, since we would be doing the raid three times per day, he would be making 3,000 gold in total.
“3,000 gold is certainly not a small amount… with personal training from the Crown Prince on top…”
“3,000 gold per day plus personal training from me. Isn’t it great, Ren?”
“Hm. I have a lot to say, but I don’t quite know how to put it into words. Agh, my sides hurt.”
“You reap what you sow.”
I swallowed the Muscle Strengthening Elixir like candy. For a moment, I was worried that my muscles would bulge out like before. Thankfully, nothing of the sort happened. The moment I ate the elixir, I felt every muscle in my body tighten like they were being squeezed. Then, a fiery heat spread out across my body in an instant, followed by a wave of exhaustion.
[Every muscle in your body becomes tougher and stronger. Strength and dexterity both increase by 1.]
Nice! Two stats increased at the same time. With this, I could get stronger once again. Excited, I urged Ren on.
“Alright, let’s go do our final raid for the day.”
At my words, Ren paled and his lips trembled.
“You… Are you human?”
“Hm? What’s wrong? What happened to your spirit from earlier, Ren?”
“My entire body hurts! It hurts too much!”
Ren had an extremely desperate expression. He was finally wearing an expression befitting of his young face. With a calm smile, I consoled him.
“That’s why I said I would massage you well.”
“Aaak! Crown Prince is murdering a dungeon explorer!”
“Hahaha, you’re free to enter, but not free to leave.”
Like this, the curtains were raised to our fun party raid.
1. Tilting at windmills – attacking imaginary enemies