Rupegia Ch. 03: Royd’s Kerfuffle

The three adventurers enter my room and notice me.

"Hoho, greetings again. You progressed a lot haven't you?" The wealthy adventurer casually asks.

His party is still the same, but now I see dirt, blood, and tired eyes on the three of them, though the woman is the only one without a drop of blood on her clothes.

I respond with a faint smile, "Yeah, I got the hang of dealing with these monsters. They're quite dumb and weak, so I had to come to this floor for a challenge."

He nods and smiles back. "Indeed, my teacher instructed me to come to this level because anything below is just too weak. We went much deeper into the dungeon, but after this level, the goblins got stronger much faster, so we came back here for an easier time." He puts a hand over his chest as he politely introduces himself, "I'm called Nour, what's your name?"

"Wolf Ryder."

He nods respectfully and asks, "Then, Mr. Ryder, would you mind if we take a rest with you? Is this area safe?"

Again with the "Mister." Also, he didn't say his last name, so was it a blunder to say mine? Do normal people not have a second name?

I get a little nervous, but I decide to be friendly and reply, "Y-yeah, no problem. I killed the monster at the dead-end."

The three of them sit down near the wall, Nour sits by a wall facing me while the woman and the other man sit at the corner, then they pull out canteens and start to drink.

Nour introduces his companions as he motions to them, "This woman is my sister, Rania, and the man is my slave guard, Liam."

"Hello," Rania greets in a monotone.

"Greetings, Grand Ryder," the man follows with a more diligent demeanor.

"Grand" Ryder? That feels even weirder, but I assume this is how a slave respectfully addresses others.

The words that I hear are foreign, but because of the language skill, everything is being translated to its closest meaning in English. The words they speak also sound slightly garbled, so I need to focus to understand what they're saying. This must be the effect of not having 10 points in the language.

I wave my hand to them and smile.

Then I feel a faint breeze, and Nour narrows his eyes as he inspects the visual distortion of my [Wind Armor]. "You know [Blessing Magic]? I didn't see you using [Wind Armor] the first time we met," he casually inquires.

Oh, shit. Quick, time to lie.

I force a smile and answer, "I didn't want to... train with enhancements on. I thought it'd be best to train my sword without using magic first until I got a few levels with it"

"Bahahah!" Nour suddenly laughs out loud, then he looks at his companions. "That's the exact same advice that Teacher gave us!"

"Told ya it's good advice," Rania replies with a wry smile.

"Agreed, master. The path to glory is a long journey," Liam adds with a serious tone.

He sounds like a sage.

Nour raises his hands and lowers his head in defeat as he admits, "Alright, alright. I'm not going to rush out into a dungeon or anything like that. I learned my lesson..." Then he lifts his head and crosses his arms as he stares at me. "But anyway... exploring dungeons alone is uncommon, why don't you partner with somebody? [Blessing Magic] is valuable for any fellowship."

The advice book said that fellowships are like parties.

"Don't pry into the business of others," Rania warns him.

He flinches and smiles wryly. "Geh... I'm sorry. Mr. Ryder just piqued my interest."

Rania turns to me and smiles wryly. "Forgive my brother, Mr. Ryder. He's far too curious and carefree."

"That's not a problem... " I answer and awkwardly rub my neck. "I don't mind answering. I'm traveling alone because I'm new around here, and I... pick my partners carefully."

"Rania, I think he's Teacher's son," Nour teases and chuckles softly.

"That just means that Teacher's mentality leads to a longer life," she replies flatly.

There's nothing I can do but smile at this exchange. Nour might be a little nosy for me, but it's hard to be mad at him because he seems good-natured.

Nour rolls his eyes at his sister's teasing and turns to me again. "Well, okay... but Mr. Ryder, have you thought about buying a slave as a companion? Blood Slaves can be more loyal than even sworn knights," he suggests with a subtle smirk.

"Blood Slave?" I blurt out a question, but then Nour raises a curious eyebrow at me, so I try to salvage my question, "I mean, how can a Blood Slave be that loyal?"

He smiles subtly at my awkwardness and answers, "Well, you can use [Slavery Magic] to make sure that they always obey, but that doesn't inspire loyalty. The important thing is that the Gods watch over the Blood Slaves, so you can be certain that they're always the best servants. Just like my companion, Liam."

So, is it related to [Blood Magic]...?

"Hmmm... can you ex-..." My question gets cut short. I get two hits on my [Sense Presence], one small and one huge, both monsters.

Just what the hell is this.

I instinctively get up and draw my sword. "Monsters are coming," I somberly report.

All three of them look confused, but they stand up and draw their weapons. Liam looks at me suspiciously.

"I didn't hear anything," he states, but I ignore him as I recognize what's coming at us.

Oh no... This enemy is dangerous, extremely dangerous.

The monsters suddenly start sprinting as they've seemingly detected us, then we start to hear a jingling in the distance.

Liam turns his head towards the noise and questions in confusion, "Chain mail?"

"Run!" I shout and dart towards the corridor. It dawns on them what's coming, and they immediately follow me.

I run as fast as I can, but it's too late. When we get near the entrance to the corridor, the monsters are already at the doorway, trapping us inside.

We stop and our blood runs cold as we see the two figures coming to kill us. These monsters are the reason I don't want to go to the eleventh floor: the Orc Headhunter and the Swamp Goblin.

There's a trap on the eleventh floor, a roaming duo of monsters much more powerful than the ones normally found in the area. They hunt weaker adventurers and prey on them, so this is why nobody spends any time on that floor. The worst thing is that the Escape Bomb doesn't work on the orc, its endurance is too high. The duo is a terrifying combo.

The Swamp Goblin is a brown, filthy goblin that wears simple rags. It uses a blowgun that shoots poisoned darts that weaken the physical capabilities of adventurers. It's physically weak, so it's the priority target.

The orc is a green ugly monstrosity around two meters tall. It has a pig snout, large eyes, and huge tusks coming out of his mouth; its strength is superhuman; it wields a claymore that he uses with a single hand, and a large kite shield; and it wears a hauberk with a metal cuirass, vambraces, schynbalds, and cuisses. I'll be lucky if I survive a single strike from this thing.

"MASTER! RUN!" Liam screams while he charges the orc.

That was the wrong move. Nour and I have shields, so we can defend against the goblin and dodge the orc while Rania snipes the goblin, but we never agreed on cooperating, so Liam must be thinking of sacrificing himself instead of betting on us defeating him.

I just can't let him commit suicide, so I charge behind him. I cast [Entangling Vines] at the goblin's feet and hide behind my shield.

Lucky for us, our timing is accidentally perfect. The orc is occupied with Liam, so its reaction is slow, and I manage to duck under the quick slash it sends at me, slipping past it without a hitch, but as I pass, I feel the orc's gaze on me. I think it knows what I'm doing.

I ignore him and completely hide behind my shield, blocking my vision of what's ahead, then I hear a soft *ptoon* as a dart hits my shield and bounces off.

Good, now that goblin is dead.

The vines grab both of its legs and hold them in place. It fired its blowgun and didn't dodge, so now I'm going to make it pay for it.

The goblin screams in terror and anger, then I reach it and savagely slash down diagonally. My sword slides through its skull and lops off a part of its head.

I stop and stare as the life in the goblin's eyes is snuffed, his brain matter exposed by my attack, then he collapses, and I immediately turn around, just in time to see Liam getting blown away several meters.

"NOOO!" Nour screams. He's attacking the orc, but the monster is just effortlessly defending with its shield.

The orc has one big weakness, its metal armor, which is vulnerable to electricity. I frantically remove a point from [Sword Use] and put it into [Electric Magic] while I pray that Nour doesn't die in the next attack.

Now with a free hand, the orc savagely slashes sideways. Nour defends with his shield, but he gets splattered on the wall and all the air from his lungs is forcefully expelled.

The orc doesn't finish him and instead dashes towards Rania. I cast [Lightning Bolt] at the orc's back and it immediately stops moving, then its body starts convulsing. It's stunned, but for how long?

I do a mad dash towards it and prepare to strike. I try to slash its neck, but it turns towards me at the same time, and I only wound it as it gets out of my reach. His shield suddenly comes towards my face, and all I can do is meet it with my own.

A loud noise of metal hitting metal fills the dungeon, then pain flares in my shoulder as I feel it almost gets dislocated from the impact.

I'm forced to take a few steps back to maintain my footing, then I cast [Lightning Bolt] and the orc gets stunned again.

"[ICE LANCE]!" Rania screams with a cracked voice.

I see the orc jerk away with a speed I didn't think was possible, then a spear of ice suddenly pierces the orc's shield shoulder. It's a complete penetration right at the bone joint, and the spear is a good 10cm wide, so the orc drops the shield as its arm is now completely useless.

From behind the orc, I see Rania fall to her knees.

Was that an advanced spell? It certainly did a lot of damage to the orc.

Maybe she's inexperienced and is now suffering from mana drain like I did once, so this means I can't rely on her anymore. I need to kill the orc myself.

The orc roars in pain and anger, then he grabs the lance and pulls it out without hesitation.

I get up and cast [Lightning Bolt] again. The monster twitches, and even though it doesn't get stunned, that's enough of an opening.

I stab the orc in the groin, and I feel my sword sinking into flesh. It seems like this is a vulnerable area where the chain and plate mail don't have proper coverage.

The orc screams again and gives me a weak blow with his claymore that I defend with my shield, but it's enough to push me backward.

My sword gets jerked around, but I don't lose my grip on it, so it does even more damage to the orc as it's violently ripped out of its body.

"RAAAAAAH!" Liam screams his lungs out as he charges.

A dagger flies towards the orc's face, but it deflects it with its claymore. Liam reaches the orc a second later and slashes at it. The orc parries the attack, but that's another opening for me.

I jump and slash towards its throat, but it evades again with an impossibly high speed, so I only manage to wound it.

The orc is bloody. Its chest is completely stained from the blood that's pouring from its two wounds on its neck, its legs are red as a large amount of blood flows from its groin, its shoulder has a large gaping hole that bleeds even more than the other wounds. But even with all this, it's still fighting like a barbarian.

It kicks Liam again, who seems to be too slow to react, and he gets blown away a few meters, then the orc tries to counter my attack with its claymore, but I manage to parry it!

Is it losing strength? It did counter from an awkward angle, though.

"[SHOCKING TOUCH]!" Rania screams again with an even more cracked voice. That's a level 10 [Electric Magic] spell.

Suddenly, the orc starts to convulse, now completely defenseless as the spell wracks through its body, and I see Rania collapse behind him. She must've run out of mana.

I'm too far to immediately slash at its neck again, but it's enough for me to aim for the groin. This time my sword pierces deeply, and I quickly try to pull it out, but it's stuck.

The orc roars while still convulsing from the spell. I give up on the sword and grab my dagger, then I jump and aim for its neck.

The monster is stinky and filthy. My right hand grabs onto the back of its huge head, and it gets coated in something sticky, then its smelly breath hits my face. I ignore my disgust and savagely stab his neck. The skin is incredibly tough, and the dagger's blade isn't sharp enough to penetrate deeply, but I keep stabbing into the previous wound to widen it.

The orc stops convulsing.

Oh no, he's going to hit me. Is it going to be a punch? Or a stab? Or a slash? Or is he going to just grab my head and crush it?

I have no time to get away, so I just have to bet the lack of blood pressure will save me!

"STOOOP!" Nour roars, and with the corner of my eye, I see him throwing himself on the sword arm of the orc, then hugging it with all his strength.

Thank you, Nour. You've bound the monster for me, so I'll use your opening.

I stab the orc's neck even more savagely, causing blood to spurt all over my face and chest. The orc's roar starts to die down as I split its neck open, then it falls on its knees. Its angry expression goes blank, and it starts to fall backward.

Oh no! Not that way, you'll crush Rania!

Both Nour and I pull the monster towards us, then it falls face down in a pool of its own blood.

"You are now level ten."

Nour and I stare at him for a few seconds as we catch our breaths, then reality comes back to me, and I rush towards Liam.

I kneel before him and apply [Regeneration]. He's alive, but unconscious. I have no idea if he's bleeding internally, so I'm just going to heal him until he wakes up, then I should try to wake up Rania next. It's best that everyone is awake, even if in pain.

Nour kneels beside Rania and pours a glowing blue potion into her mouth.

Isn't she going to choke on that?

She suddenly wakes up and coughs a few times, then she opens her eyes weakly and starts swallowing the potion properly. After she finishes drinking, her body starts shivering, and Nour hugs her tight.

Oh, okay. I guess that worked.

Liam wakes up a few seconds later, but he's too weak to get up. He slowly turns to me and mutters, "Poison..."

I think he got hit by the Swamp Goblin. This is why that monster is killed first while everyone hides behind their shields. Liam got poisoned during the fight and lost most of his physical strength.

I pull out a battle potion from one of my chest pockets and pour the thick dark liquid into his mouth.

I got a little scared of the Mossy Fangpine and the Bush Babies, so I have three. It's going to take around ten minutes for it to work, though, so I'm going to continue healing Liam meanwhile.

After a minute, I drink a mana potion as my MP steadily drops. My shoulder hurts, and Nour could be wounded too, but Liam is much worse, so he gets priority.

Rania stops shaking and Nour helps her sit, then he comes over to me.

"Is that [Regeneration]?" He weakly asks.

"Yeah. I don't have a lot of mana, and I'm not very experienced, so this is going to take some time," I softly respond.

He shakes his head gently. "Oh no, you already did a lot. Here, let me give Liam one of my potions." He kneels and helps Liam drink a red potion. I see that its glow is much stronger than the ones I have.

Nour returns to Rania, then a few silent minutes pass, and Liam gets strong enough to sit. "Thank you, kind Sir, but it's enough for now. Please heal yourself," he pleads.

I don't want to argue since my shoulder is hurting, so I just do as he says and use the last of my mana to ease my pain. The potion is still acting, so my mana is recovering faster than normal.

Once I stop healing myself, Nour turns to me, his face still pale, and praises me with a weak voice, "Thank you, Mr. Ryder. You could've run after killing the goblin, but you didn't, you saved us, and most of all Liam, who was going to sacrifice himself for us."

True... throwing myself on the orc's chest was certainly reckless.

I awkwardly rub my neck and reply, "I just... I didn't think I should run away."

"You have a noble soul," he whispers with a smile.

"Indeed, I owe you my life," Liam affirms solemnly.

"Thank you..." Rania chimes in with a hoarse voice.

I'm getting a little overwhelmed, and I have no idea how to react, so I just smile weakly and nod.

But then the adrenaline starts running out, and the reality sinks in. The orc should be on the eleventh floor, and I don't know why it came here. I'm scared I'll meet another one, so I just want to go home as fast as possible.

"We need to leave this place. fast. These two monsters shouldn't be here; there's something wrong with this dungeon," I nervously plead.

"He must have entered the exit... multiple times," Rania supposes.

"And crossed multiple floors?! That's insane, how could such a rare thing happen repeatedly?" I retort bitterly.

A monster could indeed enter the exit door on a dimensional dungeon like this one and appear on a lower floor, but that's something rare to happen even once, so for it to happen multiple times is a miracle. We won the lottery of bad luck to find him.

"Perhaps the Lord has been skimping on his duties," Liam suggests dispiritedly.

The Lord manages the dungeons. If the monsters aren't culled often, then dangerous ones can appear, or like in this case, an extremely dangerous monster goes to a floor it's not supposed to be on.

"We need to report this," Nour asserts, then he stares at me intensely. "Mr. Ryder, do you have space in your [Item Box]? We need to bring these corpses to the guild. Since you did the most, the least we can do is to let you take all the rewards for these kills."

I raise my eyebrows in surprise and ask, "Is that really okay? I didn't kill them alone."

Nour nods and insists, "Yes, it's the least we could do for now."

I don't want to argue, so I just collect both corpses, then Liam and Rania stand up, and we start walking towards the exit, which is fortunately nearby.

Since I'm the one in the best condition, I lead the vanguard with Nour at my side. Liam is still too weakened from the poison to lead.

We kill two goblins on the way effortlessly. Having two people in the vanguard means that one tanks the attack while the other flanks. Our swords are also sharp enough that we can kill the goblins in a single hit.

We get to the exit soon after that. The guard near the entrance jumps in place when two completely bloodied adventures and two exhausted-looking ones suddenly appear before him.

Nour does the talking. He retells what happened, and the guards' faces pale. Meeting the Orc Headhunter is a nightmare for the people around here.

--

Two guards escort us back to town, and we wipe ourselves while walking, but enough blood has seeped through our clothes that even a [Clean] can't remove it.

Luckily, the customs officers don't ask to look into my [Item Box] since I made a blunder and put the corpses in my "Items."

When we enter the hunters' guild, one of the guards runs towards the closest attendant and murmurs something, then they both hurry up the stairs.

The presence of the guards and the bloodied adventurers attracts quite a bit of attention. Liam and Rania are looking better now, but they still seem very tired, while Nour and I look quite ghastly because we couldn't fully clean our armor.