Chapter 11: Clean your first dungeon, Part 3

KABOOM!

The cave wall crumbled under the blow of the orc’s fist.

“Haah…”

Lucia, who had been leaning against the wall to catch her breath, pushed off the ground and scrambled away.

Huge chunks of rock rained down where she’d just been standing.

Several goblins charging towards her were crushed beneath the falling debris.

“Grrrr…”

The orc, seemingly having hit the wall harder than intended, saw its green health bar decrease slightly.

But it was still far from defeated. She’d only managed to shave off about 30 percent of its health.

70 percent remained.

Despite Lucia’s frantic efforts to dodge and slash at the orc, the monster, easily three times her height, showed no sign of pain.

The red lifeblood steadily flowing from its wounds slowly leached away its body heat.

Watching the orc searching for her, Lucia reached into her bag.

“Ouch…”

She was looking for a potion to heal her injuries, but only managed to prick her finger on a shard of glass.

She realized her bag was no longer usable.

Throwing weapons she’d stored in her bag only worked against smaller monsters like goblins and agropes.

To pierce the orc’s tough hide, she needed at least a longsword, or in her current state, a weapon of the caliber of her holy sword.

Facing an opponent so much stronger than goblins and agropes, Lucia was understandably struggling.

If she used her skills, if she relied on the system, she might be able to overcome this.

The system might have put her in danger, but it hadn’t tried to kill her… yet.

However, this was only based on past events. There was no guarantee the system wouldn’t try to kill her in the future.

So, Lucia vaguely wondered what the system would do if she died.

If this were still a game, Lucia would have resurrected at a nearby cathedral or inn, but she had no way of knowing if that applied here. She could only speculate.

Since the system clearly wanted to keep her on the tracks of the “story,” she imagined it would try to keep her alive somehow.

It could replace her with someone else, but she pushed aside such unsettling thoughts.

She simply repeated to herself that she wouldn’t die here, trying to reassure her increasingly exhausted self.

Fueled by her will to survive, Lucia watched the orc smashing everything in sight.

Seeing as it couldn’t even find her right in front of it, the orc clearly had worse tracking abilities than the goblins.

Perhaps due to its large size, it seemed to ignore minor stimuli to its hearing and smell. Or maybe it was because of the noise she was making.

Tiptoe. Tiptoe.

Minimizing the sound of her footsteps, Lucia gripped her sword with both hands and slowly crept behind the orc.

She could see the orc’s large back, seemingly unaware of her presence.

Blood flowed from the wounds she’d inflicted, but judging by how the bleeding was slowing, she knew they would soon heal.

She only had one chance.

The moment she struck, the orc would turn around, and the moment she struck a second time, it would crush her with its fist.

It might be slow due to its size, but the force behind its massive swings was strong enough to bring down the cave. It was not to be underestimated.

So, where should she attack?

Lucia pondered as she slowly approached the orc.

Fifteen steps.

The neck?

No, the neck wouldn’t work. Her sword couldn’t sever those thick bones in one blow.

The shoulder?

Should she sever the shoulder to disable its arm?

However, she wasn’t a doctor, nor a torturer familiar with the human anatomy.

She didn’t know which tendons to sever to immobilize the arm.

Then—

Ding!

The sound she dreaded.

Clang.

“Ugh…!”

A searing pain shot through her right eye.

Lucia stopped in her tracks, dropping her sword.

With her remaining eye, she saw a window flashing white.

[Passive Skill: Insight has been unlocked!

Insight is—]

“Guuaaa!”

“Hngh…!”

Alerted by the sound of the falling sword and Lucia’s groan, the orc closed in on her and swung its fist.

Lucia rolled out of the way, forced to release her injured eye. Through her tightly squeezed eyelids, a torrent of information flooded her mind.

Weak points in the floor, weak points in the wall, weak points on the scattered corpses, and the weaknesses of the orc right in front of her.

Everything came into view.

Her head began to pound like it had when the status window first appeared.

Since she refused to use her skills, was the system trying to help her survive this way?

A bitter laugh escaped her lips.

“Guuaaack!!”

Boom!

She rolled to the side, dodging another of the orc’s punches.

A grazing blow opened a wound on her hip.

However, she had landed next to her dropped holy sword.

She grabbed it with both hands, tearing off a piece of her sleeve to tightly bind her weakened grip.

She forced open her still-throbbing eye.

She realized that to survive, she had to utilize the system, even if she didn’t want to.

As information flowed in, the throbbing intensified.

After that, Lucia’s memory became hazy.

The orc punched, she twisted her body to avoid it.

The orc kicked, she jumped on its foot, using it as a springboard to evade and slash at its shoulder.

When the orc charged, she rolled aside and pierced its heel.

This cycle repeated.

She instinctively dodged incoming attacks, striking, stabbing, and slashing at the highlighted green areas she could now see.

After an unknown amount of time, the orc lay on the ground, its entrails spilled across the floor. Beside it stood a girl, covered in blood and gore, leaning on her sword. She looked as though her own insides might spill out at any moment.

As the adrenaline faded, her legs trembled, and a cough brought up a mouthful of blood.

Her internal organs were definitely damaged. She would die if this continued.

The system, which had given her Insight to prevent her death, surely wouldn’t let her die so pointlessly now.

Thinking so, Lucia looked at the window that appeared before her eyes.

She had achieved both the Lucania Fragment and Orc Subjugation objectives. The rewards appeared immediately.

[You have cleared the Lucania Dungeon!

Quest Reward: 120 Lucania Fragments]

It wasn’t exactly helpful for her current predicament.

She stabbed her sword into the ground, pulled herself forward, and repeated the process, slowly making her way deeper into the dungeon.

No more monsters appeared.

Since the quest labeled “Event Story” was complete, were there no more monsters left?

She continued moving, thinking so.

Then, a dilapidated hut came into view.

Was Estelle there?

Thinking so, she approached the hut and opened the door.

Creak.

Inside, she saw a girl.

The girl was lying face down on the floor, her chest pressed against the ground in a comical pose that seemed to accentuate her figure.

She was far too familiar. A face once seen, never forgotten.

“…You…!”

“Ahaha… Welcome… to the General Store. What have you been up to?”

The girl, seamlessly adopting the demeanor of a merchant, was the same peddler girl who had appeared during Raagand’s attack.

Lucia tightened her grip on her sword, unsure how or where the girl had appeared from.

With her other hand, she grasped the hilt, ready to strike if the girl made any suspicious moves.

The only person who should have entered this dungeon was Estelle. Unless someone else had entered before her and become trapped.

However, the interior of the shop was too pristine to belong to someone trapped. It looked exactly the same as before.

Suspicious, Lucia lowered her sword. As she did, she stumbled.

She stabbed her sword into the ground again to steady herself.

“Um… Do you need a potion, perhaps?”

Clink.

Kayleen offered Lucia a red potion. Lucia snatched it and gulped it down in one go.

Finally, she felt like she could breathe.

An itchy, painful sensation spread through her wounds as the potion worked its magic.

“Payment… well, forget it. Do you need anything?”

Kayleen asked, pulling out a notebook. Lucia hesitated for a moment before speaking.

“I… don’t have any money…”

Kayleen’s eyes narrowed as Lucia mumbled.

Lucia had received money from the kingdom, but she had spent it all on potions and other supplies without haggling, due to the urgency of the situation.

She couldn’t even pay for the potion she had just snatched.

Kayleen glanced at her notebook again, and just like before, text began to appear.

Then, her gaze, filled with intrigue, shifted to Lucia.

Lucia noticed Kayleen’s eyes were a reddish color, different from the monsters.

A menacing gaze, but the intelligence behind it made it even more frightening.

Lucia flinched, shivering.

“I don’t need money. I’ll accept… ‘Lucania Fragments’ as payment.”

“How…?”

The Lucania Fragments disappeared as soon as she touched them; others shouldn’t be able to see them.

Did this peddler girl know something about the system windows?

That thought vanished as she saw one of the items that appeared on the stall after the text materialized.

A single, heavily scratched black key. And a small inscription next to it.

[Key to Lucania Dungeon’s Underground Prison.
200 Lucania Fragments]

“So? Anything you need?”

Kayleen smiled at Lucia.