Blacksmith vs. the System

I found Eleanor fighting a surprisingly effective hit-and-run battle, using her speed and Dexterity to the best of her ability. She wasn't incredibly fast. I could see that her speed was somewhat comparable to Fleeting Step, though it was considerably more flexible. She was making movements too sudden for me to replicate even with Floating Stride, and it helped her to be never surrounded.

However, while that ability helped her to never be surrounded, it wasn't helping her to actually deal the finishing blow. The reinforcements — the ones that failed to distract — had arrived, their numbers ensuring that Eleanor couldn't focus on one enemy at a time. There were a few bodies on the ground, but it was likely that they had been slain before the reinforcements had arrived.

And, whenever an exhausted one retreated back, the potions and concentrated nutrition bars were in place to help them recover their Health.

Eleanor was incredible as she danced around them despite the numbers, her confidence not faltering even for a second, but I could see that her fighting style had been geared more toward evasive action and defense than stopping power. Not shocking, considering stopping power was one thing Maria didn't lack. She just needed to keep Maria safe against the enemies while she spread destruction.

Unfortunately, without Maria, her lack of stopping power, particularly against armored figures, was showing. Her ranged attacks weren't enough to easily pass through the high-grade armor. Not that she was using them often, no doubt careful about depleting her Health.

Admittedly, I was tempted to just turn my back and leave. I didn't know what encouraged — or forced — Thomas to pull such an intense ambush, but it was certain that this wasn't the end. From what I could derive from my limited interactions in mind, he seemed entitled and greedy. A bad combination, particularly when confronted with failure.

Back before the Cataclysm, I had dealt with people like him a lot, often in the form of trust-fund students who were under the impression that their family money should somehow afford them a passing grade. But, occasionally, I had dealt with them as a part of a disciplinary committee — yet another pointless time sink I had to deal with before the Cataclysm — where I had to examine their 'discretions' quite a bit.

Rich and popular, they were not used to losing on topics they cared about, feeling entitled to success. Some just threw a tantrum before avoiding the topic of failure, while others doubled down.

Thomas clearly belonged to the second category, the kind that would take such a loss personally. Another attack would inevitably arrive.

In that attack, it was certain that he would escalate things further. Yes, I had my setup, but now that the proof of concept of dungeon exploration was in place, I could easily move my things to another location. It was a smart decision. Looking rationally, no one could claim that I actually owed Maria or Eleanor anything. Anything I took, I had paid back more than tenfold.

Yes, I earned a lot, but I didn't owe them for the benefits they hadn't intended to give.

However, it didn't change the fact that, since the Cataclysm, they were the first people I had truly bonded with. Hours of playing chess with Maria despite being demolished repeatedly, Eleanor's constant badgering for another spar, the long dinners whenever we managed to get some time from our busy schedule.

"God damn it," I growled as I had committed to a stupid, short-sighted, sentimental decision that I was sure would give me an endless amount of trouble.

I swung my arm, bringing the atlatl down.

[-46 Mana]

Another spear let loose. This time, I wasn't targeting a scout, on alert against the possible attacks, but one with his back turned at me, unaware of the risk. The spear exploded and took him from the back of his head.

The result wasn't pretty.

Once again, the dungeon mist worked to my benefit, especially since the scouts had been working hard to stay out of Eleanor's way, spread at the outside of the formation to track Eleanor to limit her mobility advantage. It meant, they weren't able to see each other, the shocked cries of the other fighters weren't enough to inform them about the true nature of the threat.

Before the crowd could even realize what had happened, I moved around, taking down all of the scouts. Eleanor looked equally surprised about the development, but it didn't prevent her from moving forward to take down the surprised attackers.

I stayed outside their range even after I had finished dealing with the scouts, this time aiming for the armor joints. The damage from the armor-piercing variant might not be as dangerous, but it still blocked their mobility enough to give Eleanor an opportunity. The tacit cooperation was enough to allow us to take down six more permanently before they pulled back into a defensive formation that made my throwing spears useless.

Since only two spears remained, it was not exactly a great loss.

Eleanor, realizing the situation had reached a stalemate, pulled back. I approached her from the other direction, and once I walked her into her field of view. She looked at me in shock, which was to be expected. What I was afraid of was to find suspicion or hostility. Luckily, those emotions were absent. I was sure of it, as Eleanor wasn't a particularly difficult person to read.

A part of me was glad that it was Eleanor and not Maria I had revealed it. While Eleanor had a sense of directness that didn't appreciate subterfuge, she was grounded enough not to take my sudden reveal personally.

At least, under the current circumstances.

She had enough presence of mind to not speak at the earshot of the others as we retreated back. She just made a questioning gesture, but when I gestured for her to follow me, she didn't complain, moving full speed as she followed me.

I didn't know whether it was the reveal of my surprise, or the overwhelming number of enemies that convinced her to retreat without complaining, but either way, I was too happy with the outcome to question it.

"Someone has been keeping secrets," she said, but only after we had put almost a mile distance between us and the hostile party.

"I have been told a little mystery looked good on a man," I responded even as I gave her a comical pose with my sword. With my bushy silver beard, no doubt ridiculous, but she didn't laugh. I shrugged. She must be still under the effect of the adrenaline.

She spoke almost a minute later, when we stood at the dungeon gate leading to the third floor. "Why are we going down?" she asked. "Shouldn't we return to the first floor?"

I was glad that she was asking about it rather than ordering what to do. I must have really impressed her. "Not before we pick some gear from my stash. We don't know if they have any other nasty surprises." With that, I stepped through the gate.

"Nasty surprises, like what?" she asked.

"Well, the ballista squad, for one," I commented casually, only for her to actually stumble.

"Ballistas, really?" she asked, shocked. For once, she actually looked unsettled. I didn't blame her. A lucky ballista shot might not have killed her, but it didn't need to. All it would have taken was for it to impair her mobility for a while, and the fight would have ended very much differently.

"Yes, all organized by a bodyguard of Thomas, I have seen him," I said, then gave her a quick summary of everything that happened, all while still running at her maximum speed, easily killing any monster that we came across.

She listened to me without interruption, but I was too familiar with her to miss her growing suspicion. I didn't blame her, as she lacked one critical piece of information that explained how I was able to outplay the enemy with such ease.

"Is it the camouflage ring?" she asked, finally interrupting me toward the end of my story, only to pause. "No, it doesn't make sense —" she continued, only to gasp in shock. "No, you can't be serious," she said even as she put some distance between us.

It wasn't the fear that made her retreat. Instead, she just raised two hands and raised six fingers from fifty yards away … a distance that I wasn't supposed to be able to see her.

"Four and two," I said, unable to keep a smirk away even as she looked absolutely shocked. I wasn't stretching the reveal to mock her. Instead, I was letting her piece things together on her own, hoping that it would help her to process the other secrets I was planning to reveal.

I didn't know if I would reveal all my secrets, but any decent subset would be shocking enough to be worth wasting a few seconds here.

She showed me a few numbers, and even wrote a few words in the air for me to read, which I told her with ease. As her shock melted into acceptance, she made one last gesture. "And, what's this number?" she asked.

It was one. A special one. "Well, that's just rude," I said with an exaggerated offended tone.

"Sorry, professor," she responded with a soft laugh even as she closed the distance, and we started moving once again. "So, you have managed to kill a dungeon boss," she commented.

"No," I said, and she looked insulted. It was a mean way of extracting information from her, but her disbelief just confirmed that there was no way of expanding the vision range without actually dispelling the mist — at least, to her knowledge. Old habits die hard. I quickly amended my statement. "I have killed four of them."

She fell into silence once again, thinking for a long while. "You consumed the crystals yourself, right?" she asked. I nodded. "No wonder you were able to outplay the ambush so easily," she commented. "Surprising."

I nodded. She was right. It was surprising, but she was handling it well. I must have impressed her more than I had expected for her to so easily accept my claim of soloing a dungeon boss, let alone multiple.

I just hoped that she would be just as accepting of all the other secrets I was about to reveal.