Dungeon, Floor 6.
"Haa..."
Noir wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
There were still two left.
Ahead of him stood two War Shadows, pitch-black from head to toe, about one meter sixty tall, with humanoid limbs, cross-shaped faces embedded with perfectly round mirror-like components, and three sharp hooked claws extending from their slender wrists.
After spending five days exploring the fourth floor, his rapidly rising Endurance had reached the point where he could smash those low-level monsters to death with his bare hands, even without a sword.
Exploration had gradually become easy.
And corresponding to that was the further slowing of his stat growth.
In fact, when his Falna had been updated last night, aside from Endurance, the highest increase any other stat had seen was not even five points.
So today, Noir had decided to head down to the sixth floor and begin exploring there.
How could he raise his stats quickly? What did he need to do?
Noir knew that better than anyone.
At first, everything had gone smoothly. Although the number, variety, and spawn frequency of monsters on the sixth floor were all higher than on the fifth, Noir could still sense them in advance and strike first, killing them one by one.
That was, until he encountered War Shadows for the first time, and four of them appeared at once, surrounding him from every direction.
At that moment, Noir suddenly charged toward one of them, twisting sideways to evade the incoming claw strike. Gripping his sword tightly, he rammed his whole body into the War Shadow's chest and drove the blade straight through it.
Without checking the result, Noir immediately rolled forward, trying to avoid the claws of another War Shadow.
Unfortunately, both his Dexterity and Agility were still too low, and the last War Shadow still managed to slash his shoulder.
Its claws tore through his clothes and bandages, leaving behind three bloody wounds.
The injuries on Noir's leg and back had been the price he paid to trade away the other two in the same manner.
Enduring the pain in his shoulder, which felt as though it were being cut apart by a drill, Noir hastily adjusted his stance.
Both hands gripped the weapon tightly as he faced the last remaining shadow head-on.
The War Shadow lunged at him, but Noir showed no fear at all. Driving off with both legs, he shot forward like a cannonball and brought his sword down in a vertical slash.
The two crossed paths.
Then the final War Shadow split cleanly in half and turned to ash.
Compared to other monsters, War Shadows possessed extremely high attack power and movement speed, but their defense was abysmal.
As long as the attack connected, even a beginner adventurer could kill one with ease.
This method of exchanging wounds for kills was the combat style Noir had developed as the one best suited for dealing with War Shadows.
Because of the effect of his skill Mask of Pain, combined with the endlessly amplified illnesses and old injuries all over his body, Noir's Endurance limit was effectively being pushed higher every moment.
His other stats, on the other hand, were completely ordinary, and under the overwhelming influence of his Endurance, their growth had become even slower by comparison.
On floors above the fifth, Noir's current Endurance let him rampage through monsters like a veteran crushing fodder.
But on the sixth floor, most of the monsters here had Agility higher than Noir's, now that he had only just become an adventurer.
So he chose this style of trading injuries for lives.
Judging by the results, the effect had been more than satisfying.
Even War Shadows, those so-called rookie killers, had only managed to leave a few wounds on his body before being completely wiped out.
Just after picking up the dropped magic stones from the ground, Noir sensed more monsters spawning behind him.
He immediately turned around and adjusted his stance again, preparing for the next wave.
Although he could still gain excelia on the upper floors, the growth there was far too slow.
There was no way Noir could rely on Endurance alone to qualify for a level-up.
As his Endurance continued to rise, he had begun to notice that his condition was improving.
The weakness and exhaustion in his body were fading. The numbness, itching, and pain were also lessening.
Sooner or later, his depleted body would fully recover, and the threshold for that recovery was a level-up.
Once that happened, Noir would just become a shield-type adventurer with a severe imbalance in his stats.
And with that, forget taking revenge on everyone who had hurt him, he would not even be able to deal with the slave traders who had sold him.
That was why Noir had come down here, to the sixth floor of the Dungeon.
He intended to make full use of the advantage his Endurance gave him in the early stages and squeeze every bit of value out of it.
If he wanted to grow stronger quickly, the simplest method was adventure.
In other words, challenging monsters stronger than himself.
This was common knowledge to everyone.
But the price of adventure was that out of ten people, only one might succeed and live.
In a place as perilous as the Dungeon, fighting above one's level was no different from courting death.
But Noir could gain rapid growth this way, and being injured would further raise his Endurance. From here on, all he had to do was make sure he did not suffer wounds severe enough to die in the Dungeon.
Another wave of monsters passed. Leaning against the wall, Noir was in the middle of bandaging the fresh cut on his thigh.
His brow furrowed.
He sensed a monster appear, so he immediately dropped the half-finished bandaging, picked up his sword, and turned toward the direction where it had spawned.
But the monster he expected did not appear.
Directly ahead of him was a huge crystal.
These light-providing crystals were everywhere in the Dungeon.
Cautiously glancing left and right, Noir confirmed that there were no other passages leading to the other side of the wall.
"Could it be...?"
After quickly tending to the wound, Noir gripped his sword and thrust it hard into the crystal.
The blade slid in with ease.
Crack!!!
From the point where the sword pierced it, fractures rapidly spread across the entire crystal before it shattered with a bang.
The instant it broke apart, a goblin burst out from inside and lunged at Noir.
After cutting it down with a swing of his sword, Noir cautiously stepped through the opening.
'As expected... it's an unexplored region!'
Noir had never heard of any passage on the upper floors being blocked off, requiring a wall to be broken open to gain access.
That meant there was only one possibility.
This was an unexplored region no one had ever entered.
Before Noir could go any deeper, countless cracks suddenly appeared across the surrounding walls, and goblins began tumbling out of them one after another.
A Monster Party!
Noir's heart jolted.
That was a phenomenon where large numbers of monsters appeared at once, something that usually only happened on floors below the tenth.
Fortunately, although there were many monsters, every single one of them was just a goblin.
With Noir's current Endurance, even if he stood still and did nothing, low-level monsters like goblins would have a hard time breaking through his defense.
It took him over ten minutes to clean out all the goblins, then he continued exploring deeper into the cavern.
Simply reporting the location of an unexplored region to the Guild would already earn a considerable reward. If he could thoroughly scout out the place, the reward would only be greater.
But before he could venture very far, another Monster Party broke out, and once again, a huge wave of goblins poured forth.
"Did I stab straight into a goblin nest or something?"
An entire afternoon passed, and he no longer knew how many waves of goblin-only Monster Parties he had gone through.
In any case, the pack Noir had brought with him was now stuffed completely full, bulging visibly from the outside.
He had also harvested plenty of goblin drop items, Goblin Fangs among them.
Seeing that it was getting late, Noir had no choice but to head back. As he left, he found himself rather reluctant to part with such an easy farming spot.
When he got to the Guild and exchanged all of his haul for valis, the total came to twenty-three thousand valis.
That was nearly as much as a ten-person party could earn in an entire day.
Mainly because a few of the drop items alone accounted for half of it.
Having earned such a huge sum, Noir bought plenty of good food on the way back and also picked up a white coat for himself.
Now that the Hestia Familia had Noir in its ranks, their daily living expenses were no longer a problem.
But weapon maintenance and the like were not cheap, and after deducting those costs, Noir's only equipment, aside from his sword, was still just bandages.
So that night, after seeing the fresh injuries constantly appearing on Noir's body, Hestia went to Granny May the very next day and borrowed the fried potato puff cart Noir had once used to make a living.
During the day, Noir would head into the Dungeon, while Hestia would run the stall, doing her best to ease the Familia's financial burden.
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