Third floor (1)

After a short visit to the supermarket, where he stocked up on food as well as bought the noodles and source for the community cabinet, he arrived back at his room.

There he didn't hesitate to ignore the homework and instead directly opened up the dungeon screen.

Today he would first run through the first floor, which should be easy, before once again clearing the second one. He didn't expect it to be hard either. Depending on his state he would then attempt to clear the third floor.

Since he hadn't found a way to make money with crafting yet, he wasn't intending to invest too much time into it. For now, clearing higher floors seemed to be the better choice.

Selecting the first floor of the 'Tower of Challenge he found himself once again in the now-familiar caves.

The clearing of the first floor went without a hitch and he didn't even have to take a rest. Sadly nothing special dropped. It could even be said that the drop rate was abysmal. A single goblin steak, as well as a single EC, was all he got for his work.

But this couldn't dampen his spirit. He already expected the drops to be bad. But even with the bad drops, it was still worth it. After all, it hadn't taken him long to clear the first floor. So even if the number of drops was low the risk was low as well. It had been the model of a low-risk low reward run.

Now for the next run, although the second floor was slightly more difficult than the first, he didn't expect there to be any problem.

Once again he easily cleared the floor with the only hick-up happening when he was fighting three goblins at the same time and didn't manage to instantly kill one of them. Getting hit with a rock in the stomach really fucking hurt. Luckily he didn't sustain any damage but for a moment he had the feeling of having to puke if he even moved a little. Luckily it was only a feeling and he managed to overcome it, cleanly getting his revenge by slaughtering the goblin who had hit him successfully.

Once again the drops sucked. They consisted of only one Goblin Leather and two Goblin Steaks. There was also a seemingly obligatory single EC.

"Is there even a good reason to rerun these floors?", he couldn't help but ask himself. The rewards had been truly disappointing. For the second floor even more so than for the first, even though they were better. Maybe it was because he had been hurt this time.

Throwing this question to the back of his mind, he went to the kitchen to cook something.

Running the dungeon consumed a lot of energy, drastically increasing his appetite.

After a hearty meal, he felt that he was ready to tackle the third floor. Going back to his room and picking up his prepared backpack he selected the third floor.

Once again he found himself inside a cave. It was just like on the first two floors. A circular cave with only one exit. The huge difference was the screen in front of his eyes.

[[ Welcome to the "Tower of Challenge" Level 3 "Goblin Patrol Ground" ]]

[[ Main Task:

As you come closer to the goblins main location, you enter the "Goblin Patrol Ground"

A network of caves and hallways, which is patrolled by 30-40 goblins in groups of up to five.

]]

[[ Bonus Task: Clear all patrols at the same time

Task: Show your power by pulling all patrols together and slaughter them in one fell swoop.

Reward: 1 x Random Gift Box (Tower of Challenge 3) (common)

]]

[[ Bonus Task: Clear all patrols alone

Task: Show your sneakiness and intelligence by killing each patrol without alarming another one.

Reward: 1 x Random Gift Box (Tower of Challenge 3) (common)

]]

This was the first time he had gotten the main task for a floor, not to mention the two available bonus tasks. Before the main task had never been written out but had just seemed to be to kill everything. Now that the task was explicitly given, it seemed that later on, they might be different from just killing everything.

The bonus tasks seemed to indicate ways on how to clear the main task. They also seemed to be mutually exclusive. At least Ivan didn't think that it was possible to clear them at the same time. Now the large question was how good the reward was. A random gift box could be just about anything. It also wasn't possible to see a description of the box. No matter how much Ivan focused on it, no description popped up.

This left only the fact that they had "Tower of Challenge 3" in their name as an indicator. But considering that this was the third floor of the Tower of Challenge the only thing he could guess from that was that the loot pool should be specific for the floor.

Not that it mattered that much to him. Even without any reward, he would still have tried to fulfill the second bonus task. Just to stay safe it was clearly a good idea to pull each patrol without alarming another.

After checking if there were any goblins near, he removed his backpack. He then peeked into the hallway, searching for any goblins. Seeing that no goblins were directly waiting for him, he relaxed his grip on his dagger. Only to once again tense up, when the sound of footsteps reached his ears.

He carefully moved his head back, so that he could just barely survey the hallway. Then he waited with his breath held.

Slowly the sound of the footsteps increased, increasing the tense feeling in him until finally, the first goblin rounded the curve on the right side of the hallway he was observing.

Ivan didn't hurry to confront them and instead decided to wait for them to come to him. He would then pull them into this cave and get rid of them here. Then the chance of getting caught by another patrol would be minimized.

Sadly this plan didn't work out. When the group of five goblins was in front of the entrance of the cave, he expected them to at least look into it. Then he could pull them inside. But to his surprise they just ignored it. It seemed as if they weren't even able to see the entrance, not to mention him hiding.

Instead, they continued to march on.

With the training from the first two floors, Ivan was able to adapt his plan on the fly. After the group had passed the entrance he sneaked out and stabbed his knife into the back of the last goblin. The clean move, honed by the combat experience, managed to stab directly into the goblin's heart.

But the moment the knife went in, Ivan realized that he had made a mistake. Although the stab directly killed the goblin, it didn't stop him from making a purely reflexive sound. A sound that was enough to warn the other goblins.

The four goblins left whirled around and stared angrily at the human who had suddenly popped up and turned their brother into sparkling light.

"Grrr....", one of them exclaimed and rushed towards Ivan, brandishing his claws.

Stepping sideways, Ivan dodged the simple attack and swung his dagger through the air. The dead goblin vanishing into sparkling lights really helped, since nothing inhibited his knife.

The knife slit surprisingly skillfully through the air and then through the neck of the goblin. With this, only three goblins were left.

Ivan expected them to just rush at him, just like any other goblin he had encountered. But they surprised him.

*Grunt.*, the goblin which carried an iron rod and who seemed to be the leader of the patrol, just issued this sound and the two other goblins stood behind them. Each of them held a rock in their hands, clearly waiting for an opportunity to throw them at him.

The leading goblin positioned himself between them and Ivan. This way they formed a simple formation, with the leader at the front and two ranged attackers behind him. If Ivan had the time for idle thought he might have thought about the role of the two goblins he had already slain. But he didn't have idle time, because as soon as the formation had been created, all the goblins started to attack him.

First came one of the rocks. By twisting his body he managed to dodge it but at the same time, it destabilized his stance. Something the leading goblin directly tried to make use of. It swung his iron rod towards Ivan's legs.

Because his stance was in a mess Ivan wasn't able to dodge in time. Not that it made any difference. Unexpected to the goblin, his knife first slit through his iron rod like butter, before it easily cleaved his body apart.