Chapter 47 Slaying the party and the boss
The four of them were strong… But they weren’t fucked stronger by me like my wives. Every single person hit a target, and they bowed back from the pressure; every single one of my wives held the advantage in their fight. But there were four of them, and only three melee fighters in our group, then Cherry and I. I had to deal with one myself and… I didn’t have a combat class.
I was stronger than I should be, but the bonuses combat classes got, especially ones that focused on melee, made them incredibly unpredictable. You could have a million rogues, and none of them might have the same combination of skills they could possibly use, on top of the differences in similar skills and modifiers. The farming skill I have could be drastically different from other farmers' farming skill.
Offensive classes did tend to lean in a single direction, though. Thieves, rogues, and monks tended to lean toward agility, either ramping up damage over time or slowly whittling down an enemy until they can’t defend themselves for a massive counterattack. The two-handed axe my enemy wielded made me believe he was a strength-based class like warrior, fighter, berserker, or barbarian.
As long as the person didn’t have two or three skills that increased his first strike, I could most likely hold out. Our weapons clash, and I feel my hands start to go numb right away. I started backing up and dodging instead of clashing with him, as he held the clear advantage in power. If I weren't making holes and ledges to catch his feet with my earth magic, he could have outright charged me, but because he had to be careful where he stepped, I hadn't been overwhelmed with relentless strikes. My strength may have been higher, but he had skills tied to striking harder than his strength stat, easily twice as much damage as my strength provided.
While I was slowly being pushed back, Cherry was still there, overwatching the situation. Silk clashed with the injured leader, Tems with the rogue/swordsman, not sure which, and Sarah clashed with the two-handed sword wielder. All of the enemies were on the backfoot, but none appeared to have outright defeated their opponents yet; they were in the same situation as I, weaker than my opponent, but not weak enough to lose instantly.
The female adventurer was doing her best, but if she didn’t get help soon, the goblin king would overwhelm her and either kill or drag her off. The thing was, I didn’t believe in fighting fair. Any advantage I could get, I would take, and that led to an unorthodox fighting style. My axe clashed with his as I felt my grip weaken. I glanced behind him as my eyes widened in shock. “The goblin king is coming!”
In the midst of a battle, no one expects an outright lie from their enemy. As I played out the part perfectly, he turned to stop a potentially dangerous monster from stabbing him in the back… Only to be stabbed in the back by me instead. My axe dug into his shoulder blade, almost cutting his arm off his body. It was hard not to laugh at how easily it was to trick these people.
To be fair, most classes tended to lean toward a single stat, leaving the other stats much lower than their primary one. His strength and possibly endurance may have been high, but he was dumber and slower than I. He swung his two-handed axe back at me as I told Cherry. “I got him now, go help Sophia.”
I felt a fireball she held waiting for the perfect opportunity, fire over my head as it splashed off the goblin king, his insane endurance leaving him mostly uninjured, only his clothing catching fire. He was still afraid of being burned, he streamed out as he slapped at the burning clothes, giving Sophia an incredibly needed reprieve from their fighting. She takes deep breaths and casts a healing spell as she backs away from the goblin.
I dodged the wild swings from my opponent as he became desperate. He yelled as he swung. “All you. Had to. Do was. Leave! Why are you butting in on our parties' infighting!?” I could answer him. Because you were planning on assaulting your female member, because you planned on destroying the dungeon, which would make the area unsafe and cost lives, you are just scumbags that don’t really deserve a second chance, but I don’t.
There’s no reason to talk to a dead man. It was crazy, I went from having panic attacks and crying over my losses earlier this year from fighting to now actively seeking to end the lives of evil people. Righteousness was a dangerous road, and I knew it was a slippery slope to seeing everyone as evil and becoming evil myself. The thing was, I always had my wives to pull me back if I ever did go too far.
He didn’t notice I was leading him in a direction until I acted again. “Th-the goblin is behind you! Watch out.” He doesn’t turn to look until it’s too late for him. The goblin, frustrated from dealing so little damage to the paladin, turned his attention to the person not paying attention. As the adventurer smirked at what seemed like another attempt to distract him, his head was removed from his body.
The fight shifted as many were shocked by how I handled my opponent. I might have been the weakest of our group, but the fact was, my opponent was the first to die. Tems took advantage of her opponent's distraction as she stabbed him in his heart before kicking off his chest, knocking him to the ground, dead. Sarah didn’t get as lucky, but she already had her opponent on his last legs as three more attacks stripped the weapon from him, and she buried her blade into his head before it turned back into a rod.
She didn’t have a normal weapon, but one that could take on any form. The shape-changing multitool was something I was looking into getting as it was insanely convenient, except it couldn’t be upgraded, so it was almost always better to use upgraded weapons.
Silk was fighting the leader; she was the best fighter out of our group and had the most difficult opponent to take down. Even still, even with the sneak attack from Cherry, it was far closer than it should have been. I understood why they wanted to leave. The man could clear this dungeon by himself, most likely. The only reason he should stay around is if he liked the area and no longer cared about his growth, or stayed because of his party members.
Speaking of which, Silk caught her breath before calling out. “Switch out… I got this.” She slammed into the side of the goblin king as Sophia went to attack. Cherry called out. “Wait, let Silk fight it by herself, that’s why we’re here.” Sophia was hurt, blood ran down her face from several wounds, she was wearing armor, but didn’t have a helmet, which seemed like a colossal mistake. Why even wear armor at that point?
I didn’t know; all I knew was that Silk was taking out all her frustration on the first time she fought the goblin king on this one. Every clash would leave another injury on it, slowly whittling it down, unlike the mayor, who killed it in one shot. That was the difference in tiers, stats matter, but not when someone has four interconnecting skills that increased their damage by four hundred percent.
If we were here to clear dungeons, it was a clear sign that this one was too easy. If my wives wanted to get stronger… They could stay here because their strength didn’t really come from their levels, but from having sex with me. So, until they reached the next tier, it was fine to have them stick around here. I wasn’t sure what we were going to do once they hit that experience wall, though.
Silk stood over the goblin king's corpse, breathing heavily as she was covered in blood, mostly his, but some of her own. She screamed a guttural scream as the fear from her first encounter was crushed, the weight of almost losing her life earlier in the year to that same opponent was gone as she had conquered him single-handedly.