Dungeon Gacha Life Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Total Victory and the Sand-Throwing Fairy

The next day.

I set foot on Floor 4 of the Hachioji Dungeon.

From here on, the aggressive monster Goblins would appear. Even if there was only one at a time, there was no doubt I'd be facing a different kind of danger than before.

This time, Lapis's decoy strategy wouldn't work, so I took the lead. The gacha fairy fluttered along behind me.

Before long, my Detection Skill picked up a monster's presence. Having leveled the Skill up to 5, both its range and its accuracy were outstanding. It seemed to be just past the second corner ahead.

"Once we turn the corner up ahead, we'll make contact. Stay somewhere it can't reach you, got it?"

"Leave it to me! I've got the distancing down perfectly!"

I said it without turning around, and got back that slightly off-point answer, cheerful as ever. Eh, close enough, I thought with a light laugh, and drew the sword from my hip, gripping it tight.

Then I charged around the corner at full speed and cut at the Goblin I saw ahead.

From its side, this was basically an ambush. Cut hard, the Goblin staggered back a step, then readjusted its grip on the club in its hand. Its bright red face finally locked onto me.

Determined to press my first-strike advantage, I launched another attack. Guess two hits wasn't quite enough to finish it off. Just a regular attack, after all.

And then, I took the Goblin's counterattack head-on, without dodging. This time, no dodging, and no blocking with my sword either.

Braced for the opening this would leave me, I glanced at my Status, which I'd left open the whole time.

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[HP] 81/83

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Damage taken: 2! Lower than expected. Fortitude really is something.

I struck back immediately. That made three hits.

...The Goblin still wouldn't go down.

This time, the club it swung straight up came crashing down right on top of my head. Even knowing there was no pain thanks to the HP barrier, this was still scary.

But damage taken this time was also 2. I'd push straight through!

And with my fourth strike, the Goblin turned into pale blue particles.

Battle over.

At my feet lay the Goblin's signature drop: a "Goblin Fang." For what it's worth, its buyback price was 200 yen. Damn it. Apparently it was used as some kind of abrasive.

"Great work! How was the damage?"

Lapis, who'd stayed back as instructed during the fight, came over. I answered while picking up the drop.

"Two hits of 2. Total damage taken was 4."

"Ooh, then this should be pretty easy, shouldn't it?"

Clapping her hands, Lapis gave her outlook on this floor. I agreed with her on that.

Anyway, one more to go. It seemed to be down this passage, at the crossroads ahead, off to the left.

"Next, let's go all out."

This time, the question was how well I could land Slash without taking any hits and how far Physical Enhancement Lv5 and Swordsmanship Lv3 could carry me.

At the left side of the crossroads, this time I showed myself plainly instead of charging through. After confirming the Goblin had noticed me and shifted into a combat stance, I broke into a run.

First, I struck first, landing a Slash. Based on how it had felt using it so far, I could expect nearly three times the damage of a regular attack.

The Goblin immediately launched a counterattack, but I tracked it clearly and dodged it with the barest minimum of movement.

This is amazing. Is this what it feels like to be a master swordsman?

Then I struck right back with a regular attack. The Goblin vanished without much fuss. No drop.

"Oooh! That's a total shutout, isn't it!! Amazing, Touya-san!!"

Lapis flew over to offer her congratulations. It felt kind of ticklish, somehow, but it wasn't bad.

Anyway, this proves that I could fight Goblins without any trouble. The experience efficiency here should be better than before too. Seems like I'd probably be able to boost my gacha efficiency even more.

I couldn't help letting out a grin.

"Y-you've got that evil look on your face again...?"

* * *

After that, I tried out different patterns of combat, and I came out on top with zero damage every single time.

Physical Enhancement gave me the agility to dodge attacks. Swordsmanship gave me the skills to parry them.

Putting these to use, defeating Goblins was easy. And even in the worst case, if I took a hit, Fortitude Lv5 kept the damage down to 2 anyway.

On this floor, Goblins only ever showed up one at a time, so there was no risk of accidents either. This makes it more than enough to be a stable hunting ground.

Now then, with all that testing out of the way...

"From here, I'll be testing out the cheese tactic."

"...Is that really necessary?"

The little winged bug was saying something that didn't make much sense.

"Of course it is. Listen — sure, I can shut them out completely, but that's only when I'm fighting at full focus. It's a completely different thing from the kind of chore work I can phone in, like before."

"Isn't the whole idea of cutting corners inside a dungeon the actual problem here?"

Shut up.

People rack their brains precisely because they want an easier life. And it's exactly because they rack their brains that efficiency improves.

"Which means I'm right."

"That's the kind of thing a dictator would say!!"

Lapis reeled, shocked.

Rude. If I were king, I'd delegate all the power and just become a figurehead.

"Alright, you ready?"

I said it, looking at the Goblin further down the passage, prompting her to get ready. Lapis readied her bag right away, her expression turning serious as she answered.

"Ready whenever you are!"

"Alright, here we go!"

I broke into a run at once, and Lapis flew toward the Goblin at top speed. Then, right above the Goblin that had noticed us, Lapis dumped a huge load of sand out of her bag.

The sand hit the Goblin square in the face. Sand got into its ridiculously oversized eyes, and the Goblin thrashed in pain.

I used the opening to land my attack. Unable to see properly on top of the attack, the Goblin couldn't put up any real response and simply vanished.

Total victory.

Well, it was just a plain eye-blinding tactic. A strategy I'd found lying around online.

The first time I saw it, I doubted something that simple could really create that much of an opening.

But thinking it through, it made sense. On a windy day, even just a little dust in your eye hurts that much. If a decent amount hit you square in the eyes all at once, you'd have no choice but to double over and cover them with your hands.

And I had Lapis — a flying pocket, of sorts. Have her scatter sand from above the Goblin's head, and I could focus entirely on the attack.

"This truly is the Sand-Throwing Hag tactic."

"I'm young and fresh, you know!?"

Given the extra-large shock that came flying out of her, I guess even Lapis was sensitive about that kind of thing.

"Well, that's beside the point, but..."

"You just said it was beside the point!!"

Trying it out, I could tell this tactic had some major problems.

Firstly, since she still had to get close to an aggressive monster, there was some danger for Lapis. Secondly, whether the sand actually hit its eyes the way we wanted involved a fair amount of luck.

And above all, since I still had to close in and attack an opponent holding a weapon, even if it was thrashing in pain, it could still swing back at me. This time it had lined up perfectly and gone one-sided, but do it enough times and I'd start taking more hits.

And if I tried to dodge those on top of everything else, it wouldn't be all that different from just fighting normally.

Which means...

"...Touya-san. Wouldn't it be faster and easier to just fight seriously?"

...Damn it. I had nothing to say back to that.