Chapter Seventy - Getting Better

Chapter Seventy - Getting Better I didn't strictly have to take on the dungeon over and over. I had a working solution already. All I'd need was a better way to convince Becky to help, and together we'd be able to clear it in about two hours or so. But... yeah, no, that last clear hadn't been that good. Becky had done more than I had, and I found my own skills wanting, even against much weaker foes. So I wanted to see if I could solo it. The first trick was going to be finding a way in without alerting anyone, and that turned out to be pretty easy. I paid my way in, then scouted around the building, barging into spaces I wasn't supposed to be in. I found what I was looking for on the second floor. It wasn't secured, because why would it be? The ground level's entrances all had River Rats keeping them blocked, but they weren't working to stop anyone coming in from above. There was a window at the rear, with a dumpster just beneath it. I got out, went around, then jumped up and to the window. Yeah, it was doable. I really needed to practice my parkour some more, though. The few bits I'd picked up had been a while ago, and some of the tricks were fading. Anyway, I had a way in that didn't alert any of the River Rats. Then sneaking down into the main room and into the portal was all that was left, but I had already figured that one out. The guy guarding the main room's entrance would periodically leave to go to the bathroom, so he left a few openings, and I marked down the time. If a few grannies and bystanders noticed me within, that was fine. Sneaking past Becky was... kind of very easy. The moment I landed in the portal I moved out of sight, then I just had to wait for her to have her head lower, attention focused entirely on her phone. Then I could walk around, keeping things quiet and quick. She was... surprisingly unobservant, which wasn't a great thing to be as the person guarding the entrance to a portal, but it worked in my favour. I felt a little bad about going around her, so I promised myself that I would send her a little gift at the end. Just something small. A hundred-dollar giftcard? She'd like that. Entering the antechamber, I stuck to the side, then climbed up onto the scaffolding where a couple of goblins were just lingering, chattering at each other and tussling. It was pretty easy to sneak up to one, stab them in the back, then kick the other off the scaffolds. They hit the ground with a dull thud, then I backed up into the shadow, carrying the stabbed goblin with me so that I could finish them off in silence. When the others came down to investigate the goblin who'd fallen, I jumped down. The scaffold was a solid ten feet up, which made my landing atop the goblins carry a fair bit of momentum. The loudest sound they made was an aborted squeak before I ran them through. I glanced out, checking on Becky, but she was still looking at her phone. Good. I dragged the bodies to the side and left them there, out of sight. Hopefully no one would notice them, but in the last loop no one had come to check in on Becky at all, so it was probably fine. Standing up, I brushed myself down, then scanned the room. Six alcoves, each with a band of goblins that needed killing. It looked like the boss didn't show up until the rest were all dead. That was fine. There was more experience and magical power to gain from killing all the goblins than just rushing the boss anyway. I started with the first room to the right. Going in the same order as I'd done with Becky would reduce the likelihood of running into surprises. This was a room with a shaman, one armoured goblin, and dozen or so goblin runts. I stepped in, keeping my tread light, and then walked up behind the first goblin I saw and slit their throat from behind. A solid sword swing took out another, then I stabbed a third, and then things got complicated. My goal was to do this entirely with my sword, to practice, to become better with it, and to be silent. The shaman coming out and spitting what were probably insults at me in goblin before spitting fire complicated things. The last time I'd just shot him, this time I didn't need the echoing noise of my gun alerting everyone. This story originates from novelhall. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. I tried to keep goblins between me and the shaman, but that became increasingly hard as the goblins became a little braver and started to push in, picking up weapons as they went. I gasped as one of them landed a quick cut across my leg and instantly regretted not having Soothe Minor Pain running the entire time. Stupid. Still, I sliced, punched, kicked, and stabbed my way though the front line of goblins, it just wasn't very clean. I had to parry the bigger, armoured goblin's advance, and a missed blow smacked me in the arm hard enough that I was sure it would leave a welt. Another goblin struck me hard on the knee with a stick, and I felt something crunch even as a searing pain ran through me. I eventually broke off and ran across the room, ducking under a pair of tiny fireballs to run the shaman through, but that cost me when a smaller goblin jumped up and bit me in the calf. Still, after shaking it off and stabbing it, then finishing off the larger one by moving into his guard and throwing him to the ground, I found myself as the only living... wait, no, some of the goblins were just injured. I took care of them, then I was the only living being in the room. I cast Soothe Minor Pain, then hobbled over to a seat and looked over my wounds. Too many. The bite, a nasty bruise, the stab in my leg. I winced as I felt at my knee, and when I pulled my pant leg up, I saw that it was discoloured already. I bent my leg back and forth, feeling at it, and... not broken, but damn. "Screw it," I said. I Reloaded. There was no way that I'd make a good showing of the next five rooms. Turning, I stepped back into the motel and paced. It was always so nice going from a battered, beaten body to a normal, intact one. I'd made some mistakes there, but that didn't mean that it wasn't possible to run through the portal perfectly. I just had to clear six rooms without taking any wounds. Yeah... Shit, that wasn't going to be easy at all. Maybe it would be better if I wasn't such a rank amateur, though. Especially in melee with a sword. The blade felt nice in my hand, but it was still awkward to use. Sometimes it got in the way, and if I focused on it too much, I got my knee smashed in because I wasn't paying attention to what was happening around me. I pulled out my phone and started looking things up. This loop would be research and practice, then. First, some videos on kendo and their various kata. My issue there was that a lot of the modern stuff was focused on competitive kendo. That was more of a sport than a fighting art. I wasn't trying to score points, I was trying to learn how to decapitate a goblin. Still, there was a lot of value in some of the motions I saw, and some videos laid them out well. I looked at fencing for a moment, since my sword had a bit of that style to it, but the fencing sport wasn't... good. It was probably fine as an exercise and sport, but it wasn't what I was looking for. HEMA, on the other hand, was a goldmine. I sat and watched some burly man explain how to fight with a one-handed sword, stances, ways to deflect an incoming blow, where to look on an enemy and how to move. There were even some videos taken from within an E-rank portal, fighting against these smaller, winged imp things. I stood and imitated the stances, going through them quickly, and practicing. If I did it right, I'd be an expert at goblin killing soon enough... but I wanted to have skills that would carry over to the next portal as well. My next run started with a lot more confidence. And then I ate a ball of fire to the side of the face twenty minutes in and had to Reload. Okay, so maybe I ought to earn that confidence before feeling it? The truth, though, was that the level of skill required to solo this portal was way, way above where I was. ... Dammit, I was going to have to recruit Becky, wasn't I? ***