Reborn as the First Boss, Chapter 83

Chapter 83 – Into the Dungeon

“[Krenrena’s Marring Lash (Constitution)]!”

A smoky red whip formed in the air, and lashed down at the last of the Kobold Dragon Knights. The moment the red smoke struck him, the scaled dog-lizard hybrid collapsed to the ground, dead. As one might expect of a creature when their CON, which governed their HP and whether they were living or not, dropped by over a thousand points. Even with my insane stats, even my CHA was nowhere near 1000.

The spell was an interesting one. On the face of it, things were pretty simple: it reduced one of the targeted creature’s attributes by the caster’s WIS (plus CHA, in my case). So, with my WIS and CHA, the Dragon Knight’s CON fell by well over a thousand points, which was more than he started with, meaning he was now dead. Nice and simple. But dipping beneath the surface, there were restrictions in place.

The first restriction was on the attribute chosen. While I could choose the attribute being targeted, once I used it to target, say CON, I couldn’t use it for CON again until I’d run through the other attributes, or an hour had passed. At the levels we were at, dropping any attribute by over a thousand was pretty much an instant death sentence, even if you still needed to make a killing blow afterwards, but that wouldn’t always be the case.

The second restriction was the spell’s cost. Most spells had a set MP cost, whether in an actual casting cost, or a reserve cost. Some abilities, like summoning a Familiar, reserved a percentage of the caster’s MP, using it to empower their summon. [Krenrena’s Marring Lash], however, cost 10% of the caster’s maximum MP, as a base cost. As expected of what could be considered a trump card, spamming it wasn’t an option.

The third restriction was that not all creatures were affected equally by the spell. Most, like the Dragon Knight I’d just killed, took the full effect. Priests and other holy (or unholy) warriors would have the effect reduced, as would those they shielded. How much of a reduction depended on their abilities. But, for a Priest of my level, following one of the gods opposed to Krenrena? I could probably expect them to take maybe a quarter of the actual effect.

Of course, I didn’t have time to sit and think about my spells. The Dragon Knight was just the guardian, and the fight was still ongoing. Astruth, though, had not been idle, pushing forward the moment that the Dragon Knight fell. The extra burst of speed from the [Shield Charge] skill melded easily into the [Shield Bash], sending Zemcair Bloodchin flying off his feet, and crashing to the ground.

Jewell materialized by the kobold’s side the instant he landed, and her twin blades slashed his throat deep enough that there was barely enough left to keep his head on his shoulders. That didn’t matter, though, since she had [Sneak Attack], [Assassinate], and [Laceration] up. [Sneak Attack] doubled the damage when attacking foes who were surprised or otherwise unaware of her. [Assassinate] doubled the damage again when dealing with enemy commanders or leaders. And [Laceration] added an extra bleed effect on her attacks for a short time, and also made magical healing half as effective on those wounds. Adding that on to the Critical Hit and the other effects of having your throat cut? The kobold was dead before the Thief could clean her blades.

Your party has killed Kobold King Zemcair Bloodchin and his Dragon Knights!

You have gained 12500 XP!

You have leveled up!

You are now Level 43.

You have 903500/946000 XP to reach Level 44.

+11 CHA, +3 STR, +2 DEX, +3 WIS, +5 INT, +1 CON

4 Attribute Points to spend.

12 Skill points to spend.

Loot:

Kobold Shield x6

Kobold Spear x6

Kobold Chainmail x6

Kobold King’s Crown

Amulet of Draconic Essence

Kobold King’s Doomstick

Bracers of the Kobold King

Key to the Lower Depths

156 pp, 234 gp, 839 sp, 30 cp

The Kobold King was the boss of the fourth floor of the dungeon. Fourth of twenty. Honestly, we had made pretty good time on these upper floors. Yes, the monsters were threatening, but the main danger on the first couple floors had been a mix of traps that were downright diabolical in places. Fortunately, Jewell’s [Assassin’s Toolkit] fusion skill covered [Trapfinding], and I still had the [Detect Traps] spell, courtesy of the young Diviner I killed back in Windwater. Oh, and our new Waterbender had recently run these floors, and knew where the traps were. Naturally, that made things a lot easier. Couldn’t beat having inside information!

From here on in, things would be more difficult. The Kobold King had been Level 40, along with his Knights, but they were the strongest kobolds in the dungeon. Kobolds, even high-level ones, were not exactly powerful, especially if you were able to find and disable or bypass the traps they set. If a team couldn’t get past the fourth floor, then they had no business being in the dungeon to begin with.

From floors 5 to 10 were the Drakes. They were considered lesser kin to dragons, and could apparently evolve into a Lesser Dragon, if they grew strong enough. While they did have animal cunning, they lacked the true intelligence of actual dragons. However, for people in their level range, they were still deadly threats with powerful bodies that were resistant to magic and most weapon attacks. They were all levels 40 to 50.

Floors 11 to 19 had the Lesser Dragonkin. The least powerful of them were Level 1 in Tier 2. Apparently, Lesser Dragonkin was one of the uncommon evolutions for Kobolds, though they became more common in areas where actual dragons lived. The Lesser Dragonkin was more powerful than the more common High Kobold evolution, but they were still no dragon. Their levels in the dungeon ranged from Tier 2, Level 1 to Level 9, and they still had the trapmaking inclination of their lesser cousins, which amplified the danger.

And then, there was the twentieth floor. There was only one creature on the final floor, according to the Guild. That was the den of Ilbanth, the Firelord, and while the dragon had been defeated more than once by adventurers who had proven worthy, the success rate for groups that actually chose to fight the dragon was 32%, but only if you counted ‘success’ as ‘more than half the party survived long enough to retreat’. If you narrowed the definition to just those who defeated the boss, you were looking at a roughly 1% success rate.

The ones who managed to defeat Ilbanth, though? In addition to a healthy amount of experience, a literal dragon’s worth of loot in the form of materials and items, and bragging rights that few on the continent could match? They also got the Dragonslayer title, which gave them increasing bonuses against Dragons, dragonkin, and any draconic creatures based on the number of dragons they’d killed. Like the Hero Slayer or Boss Slayer titles, but more socially acceptable. Of course, any dragon that saw it would be far more hostile to you, but that was the cost of doing business.

Syllia frowned as she looked on the gutted remains of the floor boss. “This is too fast. I mean, I know that you all are more powerful than most, but it took us two days to work down to this level, and then another fighting our way back up, with us camping on the first floor landing, before heading to the entrance first thing. You fought us, and then blew through all four floors in a single day!”

I chuckled at the newest member of my menagerie. “We have the skills and abilities to make light work of the combat, and between your knowledge and Jewell’s skills, we were able to get around the traps without wasting too much time on them. We’ll rest for the night before trying the drakes, of course, but I would like to clear through them tomorrow. According to the Guild’s information, they’re more about power and low cunning, so we don’t need to worry about traps, or more than basic ambushes. Which means that, so long as we don’t get ahead of ourselves, we should be able to take them on much faster. I mean, we barely used any of our more powerful skills and abilities.”

“How? From the information I can get with [Appraise], you shouldn’t have been able to do all that, and still have more powerful skills in store. The Voice of the World only gives so much!”

“Oh, that’s simple, really,” I chuckled. “After all, if you got skills off the black market, then you know about Skill Thieves, right? Well, the ritual is actually quite simple, once you learn it. Granted, the actual knowledge of how to conduct the ritual is not commonly known, since it is illegal pretty much everywhere, but if you know the ritual, as I do, then the only limiting factor is whether you want the scraps of soul sticking to you until they fade away.”

I turned my attention away from the Waterbender out of her depth and towards the stone doors that had opened at the rear of the boss room when the Kobold King died. The Adventurers Guild had detailed logs of the first ten floors, and fairly good records of the rest. That was helpful, since it let us know that, when taking the stairs down from one floor to the next, there was always a landing, just large enough for a party to camp out in. These landings were considered safe zones, since monsters never entered the stairs or spawned on the landings, making it a convenient place to camp.

Of course, that wasn’t any true mercy on the dungeon’s part. No one knew if dungeons were able to think, in the traditional sense, but everyone knew that they were alive. They reacted to stimuli, at least. But it wasn’t a mercy to the adventurers, but rather bait, since it encouraged people to overreach, which led to more deaths, and more food for the dungeon.

Teleportation, beyond close-in gimmicks like some forms of battlefield movement, was nearly impossible inside a dungeon, at least for those who weren’t in a higher Tier than the dungeon itself. The best anyone could do would be the [Recall] spell, which Space Mages, Wizards, and some other types could use, which was specifically designed to teleport a party to the beginning of the dungeon they were currently in. Other than that, or some items containing the spell? You had to either walk back out of the dungeon the same way you entered, or hope that there was a secret path after the last boss that would take you to the surface.

The blocking of teleportation was actually one of the strongest arguments that a dungeon was alive. The way the magic was blocked apparently was almost identical to the way trying to teleport a person’s liver, or heart, out of their body was a losing proposition, unless you could already just pluck it out with your hand. That ‘interference’ from a living creature’s mana was part of the reason that mages couldn’t simply instantly kill anyone not dead with some kind of [Summon Heart] spell. Yes, there were rumors of blood mages or other ‘wicked’ casters who had figured out work-arounds, but unless you were powerful enough to manage the spell, and did not care for the consequences (be they spiritual, economic, or judicial), the spells were supposed to just take all your mana and fail, leaving you vulnerable to a counterattack. And anyone trying to use teleportation magic inside a dungeon was either suicidal or truly believed that the Powers That Be would protect them.

I nodded as we reached the landing, and set up the [Spiritual Retreat]. “All right, everyone in. We have a lot of work to do ‘educating’ our new waterbender, and seeing if there is anything off the loot that we could use, or whether it is better to just sell things on.”