Counter Dungeon-Delving Chapter 22 Second Floor

Jade is held up by one of the shield-bearers and the goblins' charge is completely stopped too. I throw a few more miniature javelins but they don't cause any damage since the mages stand too close to the shield-bearers.

Time to get up close and personal with one of those shield-bearers. I draw my two daggers and move into melee. Jade is having trouble with one of the shield-bearers so I move to help her.

The short sword is stabbing out repeatedly and makes it impossible for Jade to get a good angle to attack or get past. I slink to the side and try to intercept the short sword to give Jade an opening. My attempt at interception doesn't go so well and I get a shallow cut on my left arm.

However, Jade manages to convert my sad attempt to help into an opening and slips past the shield-bearer who turns to follow her. This, in turn, creates an opportunity for me to him straight into the armpit with one of my daggers. After that, I also go past him and run at the mage that is maintaining the globe of light.

In my peripheral view, I see Jade dive headfirst into a fireball to reach the second mage. Does she not have any hesitation?

The mage before me looks at me with scared eyes but I won't hesitate because my enemy is scared. My dagger sinks into his stomach with great ease and he coughs up a mouthful of blood.

My Joy at taking out the mage doesn't last long as a short sword is driven through my back. I struggle to look behind myself and see a deathly pale shield-bearer who is being attacked by multiple goblins. He must have given up his defense just to kill me.

Why? His actions wouldn't save him or the mage. Was it revenge or just a desire to take out the strongest enemy in reach? It doesn't matter anymore.

Pain spreads through my body and sets it aflame with agony as I sink into the sweet darkness that must represent death.

Can't a guy just spend his time dying in peace!

'Both of you shut up!'

Is that you Jade? Did you die too?

'Who else is there in this God-forsaken place?! And yes I died too, the fireball got me pretty good and my body gave out after I buried my fangs in the mage's throat.'

Ten already, huh.

I am forcefully yanked out of the darkness and slam into my 'new' body. As I stand up everything around me is spinning and I need a moment to regain my balance.

So we have caught up with the faster groups. While this may save us a lot of running around the groups that advance the fastest are usually stronger. Can we at least go back to setting traps?

"Jade, are you fine with setting ambushed again from now on?"

"Fine by me. That fireball was flipping painful so it would be nice if such a situation could be avoided."

We set up another more ambushes like before take out three teams comprised of mostly swordsmen and the occasional mage or shield-bearer. Our strategy is sound and we have amassed another group of armed goblins.

After we have finished off the third group Navi informs us that a group of adventurers has just reached the third floor. Jade reacts a tiny bit irritated by Navi's prompt.

"Why are you even telling us this? Should we just suicide attack again and move up another floor? How many floors are there even?"

Wait, you don't? Aren't you overlooking the entire dungeon?

I open my dungeon map and move to the higher floors. Indeed after the fourth floor, there is nothing displayed on the map.

"That's absolute BS! Why don't we have access to the layout of the whole dungeon? Aren't we protecting it?"

"Come on, let's just continue ambushing adventurers on this floor. The dungeon has its own monsters and it shouldn't matter in what sequence we fight the adventurers, right?"

With Navi giving her permission we can keep stopping them here. For now, I should take a gander at my status to see if anything changed.

Status Guy Lv.12 Goblin