James walked into the boss room again. As usual, the goblin in front tried to kill him as soon as he entered the room, but the actual boss waited on its knock-off wooden throne. In order to test his theory, he had to completely incapacitate the goblin but couldn't kill it.
James and the goblin approached each other. The goblin swung its rusty sword, and James parried it. The goblin's balance wobbled; its strike was just a blind movement, without any technique. Usually, James would've simply stabbed it in the chest during this opening, but instead, he cut one of the goblin's wrists. Now, the goblin could only use one arm to wield its sword. After a few more blows, James injured its other wrist. Then, using a few movements, he maneuvered stabbed in one of its legs.
"Well, it's probably not going anywhere, but I should be on the safe side."
James walked over to the goblin, and, taking care not to get hit by the goblin, cut off all of its hands and feet. Then, he cut the back of the goblin's knees.
"That should be enough. It might bleed out eventually, but it should still be alive for a while."
James looked over at the boss goblin. As expected, it was still stationary. James walked over to the throne, but, a few paces away, he was stopped by an invisible barrier. James didn't see anything, but something stopped him from moving forwards.
"Huh, I guess the administrators didn't overlook this. It's a shame that my plan didn't work."
James pulled out his knife and tried to stab at the barrier, but it didn't yield any results. He was about to give up on his idea when he suddenly remembered the events of his first time on the 1st floor.
"Wait, my potion vial hit the goblin last time! It didn't do anything, but it definitely did hit."
James pulled one of the indestructible vials out of his pocket, and threw it. The potion sailed through the barrier as if it didn't exist and bonked the goblin. Just like last time, the vial bounced off the goblin harmlessly. James thought for a moment, and then went to go retrieve the rusty sword beside the first goblin. When James tried to throw it at the goblin, it was blocked by the barrier and fell to the ground.
James' confusion visibly increased.
"The vial goes past the barrier, but the sword doesn't. Is the material the vial is made out of resistant to barriers or something?"
This wasn't too far-fetched to James. The material that made the vials was clear and practically indestructible, as far as he was concerned. He had no idea what it was. Maybe it was completely unreactive to mana?
James' first guess was much closer to the correct answer than he expected, but he had to way to know that.
"Anyways, maybe I'll try throwing a few more. I have 5 vials left over from potions."
James tried to throw the vial as hard as he could. He wasn't very experienced, but he attempted to throw it like a baseball pitcher. He rotated his body and snapped his wrist at the end. The potion vial ejected with quite the velocity, but went over the goblin's head. It completely missed.
"Shit!"
James tried again, and missed again. On the 3rd attempt, James finally hit the target, and was quite satisfied with the results. His projectile vial had nailed the goblin directly in the eye, causing it to bleed. The eyeball looked like it had collapsed into itself.
"I should aim for the eyes, huh. They're softer than any other part of the goblin."
James threw his last two vials, and they both hit the goblin but missed the eye. As a result, they didn't do much damage. He walked around the room to see if he could pick any of the vials up – he wanted to take out both of the goblin's eyes.
While doing so, James figured out the rough shape of the barrier. It made a circle about 7 or 8 feet in radius around the goblin. Because of that, James was able to pick up two of the vials he threw – the ones that missed completely and sailed out of the other side of the barrier.
James tried again. The first vial hit the other goblins eye. Now, both of its eyes were damaged.
"I got lucky, but I think I blinded the goblin. After all, I threw vials as hard as I could from 8 feet away and bopped its eyeballs directly. If it's not blinded, at least it should be in severe pain and have its vision greatly impaired."
James wondered if he was actually pretty good at this, but he had no standard to compare. He hadn't even tried throwing knives before. He threw his last vial for good measure, and again, it hit the goblin but missed the eye. Now, all of his vials were inside the barrier. There was nothing else to throw. James grabbed the rusty sword next to the barrier and headed back to finish off the first goblin.
After James had killed the first goblin, the boss goblin stood up with its eyes bleeding and misshapen. It flicked out its hands dramatically and materialized a spear. Then, it keeled over in pain and clutched at its face.
"Looks like it worked, huh."
However, James' confidence was shattered when the goblin picket itself up and began swinging its spear. It wasn't because the goblin's eyesight was actually fine. The goblin clearly was attacking blindly, hoping to hit something. It was because of the goblin's speed and strength. James had seen this before. It was the berserk goblin!
James didn't move from his spot. He assumed that the goblin was completely blinded because it didn't head towards him. He also concluded that its sense of smell wasn't the greatest, because otherwise, it would have still found James despite being blinded. That meant if James didn't make a sound, the goblin shouldn't be able to locate him.
However, there was still the risk that the goblin would eventually chance upon him by just swinging. James walked quietly around the raging goblin. Then, when it was quite far away from him, he threw the sword in a high arc in order to cover the distance to the goblin. Miraculously, the sword hit; when it came down, it pierced through the goblin's shoulder. The goblin roared and pulled out the sword. Then, it looked over in James' direction and began to bleed from all over its body. This bleeding signaled that the goblin was about to use a massive burst of strength at the cost of its physical condition. Then, it charged towards the direction from which the sword came from.
James, of course, knew that throwing the sword would give away his position. When he had thrown the sword, he had quietly moved away in the direction of the throne. By the time the goblin had arrived at his previous position, he was already gone.