66 (66) Treating it as a day off

The usual clamour of the Dungeon returned the next day, the busy noises of various parties sounded refreshing compared to the uniformed shouts of the more disciplined soldiers of the Irrigance Family.

The first, unlucky group that challenged the Bosses immediately combusted in a blaze of flames upon entering the room. The party consisted of one offensive, one defensive and three support classes.

Due to the lack of defence and health of the support classes, the three were instantly wiped out before the battle had even started. The other two players were left severely injured without any way to heal back up, it was apparent that they had neglected the use of potions due to their confidence in their healers.

In a 2v2 scenario, the two players held no chance of winning and were quickly decimated by a strike of a club and the slash of a dagger.

After the short battle, Kraton scratched his head and mumbled to himself. The large eruption of flames and the explosive force behind it were due to the ten bombs he planted in the ground. The result was satisfying, showing the combined power of the explosives, however, it was impossible to differentiate the power of each individual Bomb.

Kraton could only blame himself as Barren was still in his Crystal form. It was highly probably that Barren couldn't focus on the battles when in his current state; likely focusing on his own project.

Furthermore, Kraton hadn't given any specific instructions, only telling him to detonate the bombs on the players. This was misunderstood as detonating all of the bombs as soon as the players entered its proximity.

Although it was effective, it was not what Kraton wanted as the bombs were still in their experimental phase. The ideal bomb trap would be one with sufficient power whilst using the least amount of materials to make, or it could also be a single bomb with the power of a dozen other bombs, this would require fewer materials for the canister, but there might be issues with ignition or area coverage of a single explosive.

Before the next wave of players could enter the Boss Room, Kraton hurried to replace the detonated bombs. Yet to his surprise, the dungeon wasn't only mending the erupted floor, but also the metal canisters and the substances inside.

After inspecting it a bit further, it was obvious that they weren't in the same pristine condition as before. The colour of the metal was dirtier, a few cracks had appeared on the surface and the top of the canister had irregular, sharp edges instead of the smooth cut it had before.

A though subconsciously nagged at Kraton's mind, urging him to Analyse the traps. It only took a second for him to fall to the temptation as he used the Analysis skill on the floor.

<Analysis: Dungeon Floor>

Kraton blinked twice and stared blankly at the floor before his skin flushed a deep red, unfortunately, his hairiness covered this up and he remained standing with his back towards Lysine - preventing her from laughing at his flushed embarrassment.

Kraton activated Analysis again, this time on the ten explosive canisters in the ground.

<Analysis: Dungeon Defence>

Kraton grinned when he read the description, at least the first ten prototypes weren't wasted in that battle. However, to reduce confusion next time, he dug out the canisters numbered 006 to 010 and spread the other five out across the floor.

Hopefully, it would be easier to differentiate between the explosions this way otherwise they would have to be tested one by one. With 830 prototype bombs needing to be tested, it would take far too long to test them one by one, maybe taking a whole month. But if testing five at a time was viable, it would only take one or two weeks maximum.

Kraton didn't bother reprimanding Barren or telling him the specific instructions as he could just work his way around the problem himself without interrupting whatever the hell the Golem was doing.

It wasn't long until another human party entered the Boss Room. It wasn't because the two Golems outside were weak or slacking, but because Kraton had told them about his plans. Still, he stated that they could still attack or kill whenever they wanted if they got bored.

The group of players swung the exquisite double doors open, entering the room boldly and declaring their presence. Although they found it strange that the Door Guards didn't activate, it didn't matter too much as it meant they could finally see the actual Bosses.

Time and time again these five people had been slain by the two Golems before reaching the Bosses themselves. Death wasn't a big thing for these few players as they weren't part of any large guild or family and becoming strong was just a leisurely activity. Their mentality was simple: Death is not scary unless it is permanent, so let's have fun when we die.

Well, something along those lines.¯\_(ツ)_/¯

However, just like the previous party, before they had even made it ten paces into the room, flames erupted from under their feet. All of the human players jumped in fright at the sudden blaze, hopping around and trying to escape from the burning clutches of the fire.

Shortly after the flames, a large eruption of power exploded from under them, the force propelled the lighter humans away, sending them flying up into the air. The heavier humans that wore much heavier armour than support classes - such as the Holy Knights and Bladesman classes, were only blown back, stumbling across the ground like a ragdoll.

The power from five distanced Bombs was evidently weaker than having ten clustered bombs being blow up simultaneously. Not only was there five different flames instead of one massive pillar of fire, but the explosive force and heat were also far lower.

Even the support classes such as the Runic Masters (Cleric twice advancement) and the Bishop (Priest twice advancement) survived with little over half their health remaining. Unfortunately for them, they all received a level 5 burn status. Level 5 merely meant that five 'Dowsing' spells were needed to remove it, but the burn level would also reduce by itself over time.

The Bishop immediately started casting his Heal and Dowse spells on himself, as well as casting an advanced area heal. However, by the time he did, both of the Bladesmen had already been struck down. A curved dagger had pierced through the throat of the Sword-wielder, her bright blood gushed out briefly before she departed as a stream of light.

The other Bladesman - a Spear-wielder, had large bruises and cuts all over himself. On top of the burning status, the poor man had also received the bleeding status during the brawl against Kraton. Against the massive, hairy giant, the flimsy spear failed to land a strike on the large target.

A single swipe from the large, spiked club was enough to send the man flying. Kraton's attacks were relentless, after three or four solid hits the man cried out silently, wearing out the white light that surrounded him.

Shortly after the two Bladesmen died, the weak Bishop and Runic Master fell victim to Lysine's poisoned blades. The two support classes ran for their lives after being cut, but the paralysis effect of her venom made them sluggish and dazed.

A few slashes broke through the Defensive Rune that was cast upon the two and with their limited health, they finally succumbed to death.

The last human left was the Holy Knight. His face whitened in fear when he realised he was the only one left. It had only been five or six minutes since they entered the Boss Room, yet they had yet to even feel the presence of the third Boss but had already been defeated.

Since his defeat was inevitable, the Holy Knight raised his large shield and broadsword, his unyielding spirit was admirable, alas it was a futile push of effort.

Even with the Defensive Runes bestowed upon him that coupled with his tremendous innate defence and health of a Holy Knight, it was likely he wouldn't last more than a minute. Even a minute was overestimating his abilities to the extreme.

The Knight's eyes popped out as he saw the massive club approaching him. The attack speed of the lumbering giant was shocking. He barely managed to move his large shield up in time, the spiked club smashed into the thick metal shield, leaving a large dent on its surface.

The next strike came before the Knight could even steady himself, the club swinging upwards, knocking the heavy man of his feet.

Another strike, and then another. The poor Knight was rolling on the floor, his shield reinforced by a projection of a shield spell, but that was not enough to defend against the brutal strikes.

Soon, the durability of the shield hit a scary low. There were two types of durability: Material, and Battle Effectiveness. The former was the durability of the materials of the item itself. Once the durability became zero, it couldn't be fixed. The latter type would reflect on how useful the item would be in the battle.

A shield could be battered mercilessly and fragmented into many pieces; this would make its Battle Effectiveness almost redundant. However, the materials could still be in good condition and could be repaired by blacksmiths or related professions.

A shield with low B.E. durability could still be used, but would not supply any additional defence at all, instead, it would become a burden. Furthermore, its Material Durability could still be reduced in this state.

However, most high-quality items would only have one type of durability. An example of this was the golden armour the Fourth Son of the Irrigance Family wore. Normally, the durability of high-quality items could be five to ten times that of the Material Quality of a lower-quality item. But since the materials used could not be replaced or repaired, not many people used them to challenge Low-tier Dungeons.

The large shield which the Holy Knight was using was a common piece of equipment. But since it had become redundant, the man stored it away so that he could focus on dodging.

Even now, after his speed had increased by a bit, it seemed like Kraton had also increased his speed to match his. It was only then that it dawned on him that the Bosses were playing around with him. It would have been peculiar otherwise since Lysine had not joined in the fight.

Despair welled up inside the Knight's chest, the feeling of being played with drowned him in embarrassment and sadness. This brief period of surging emotions froze the man. Kraton took this opportunity to draw nearer to the man.

When the Holy Knight snapped out of the daze, Kraton's hairy face filled his vision, yet the spiked club was nowhere to be seen.

Kraton pulled a small object from his camouflaged cloak, a large sneer crept onto his face. Since the Knight no longer had a shield, it was the perfect time to use another of the Bombs. Kraton held the canister in his large hand and pointed it towards the shocked man.

"Suprise M*****F*****!"

A jet of flames erupted out of the cylindrical canister, The searing heat scorched through the Knight's armour, cooking him alive as if the armour was tinfoil. The strong propelling force came right after, at such a close range it was impossible for the man to survive.

In an instant, the man became one with the light and was returned to a room with pink walls and a pink bed.

Kraton picked himself back off the floor, the recoil from the bomb was astounding, no wonder the floor was cracked open with massive craters around the detonation points.

He quickly scurried to the central table and summoned his data rock. After a few taps, a page appeared with two columns. The first column numbered from 001 to 830, whilst the second columns were currently empty.

Kraton entered a few lines of text in the second column next to the numbers 001 to 006. Afterwards, he frowned. It appeared that it was still too hard to watch five explosions simultaneously. Thinking about this, Kraton sighed in depression.

"A month-long experiment it is then..."

The doors swung open suddenly, five weak-looking silhouettes stepped into the room. Almost immediately, five flares burst from the ground underneath them, cries of pain and surprise burst out of the engulfed players.

Kraton cursed the Golems for not killing this party so that he could recollect the implanted Bombs.

Were to two Golems actually treating this as a day off?!

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