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Chapter 8 – An unsettling scream
I used my [Shadow Stomp] Skill to restrict the movements of the Grim Reaper, moving a bit by sliding around the foot I was using to maintain the Skill.
Luce and I kept the Grim Reaper between us exactly.
She was able to take advantage of its blind spot this way.
I also kept an eye out so the Grim Reapers attack wouldn’t manage to hit Luce, even by mistake.
This was the anti Grim Reaper tactics that Luce and I came up with.
“KEKEKEH!”
The Grim Reaper swung its scythe.
That was the starting movement for its [Dragon Reaper] Skill.
“Incoming! I will deactivate my Skill!”
It would be far too dangerous to try and block it.
However, it was not that hard to dodge it.
I deactivated [Shadow Stomp] and jumped backwards.
“KEH!”
The Grim Reaper swung its large scythe.
The blade of the scythe came just short of reaching my body.
At this point, I was well aware of its reach already.
“Haaah!”
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Luce delivered a decisive blow.
Its blue spectral body tore apart and a crack appeared in its mask.
“GEH……!”
After a last scream, the Grim Reaper left another scythe.
Luce crumpled to the floor right there, clutching her head with both hands.
“Why a fourth one! This is not the one we want! This is not the one we want!”
“Well, it’s nice to have four weapon drops one after the other as well….it will be quite a sum.”
As our levels go up, we need to have powerful enough weapons to go with it.
There are many things we can be spending our money on if we want to get stronger.
Once we manage to get another few levels, I was thinking of starting to work on that as well.
Money is something we can’t have too much of.
“…..however, the one we want right now is the Skill Book.”
This was basically an opportunity of a lifetime, but it seems we just weren’t lucky with the drops.
Well, strictly speaking our luck was good to have found four Soul Reaper Scythes, even if they’re more than we can easily deal with at once.
“Haah…..I have a feeling I’ve become quite skilled in hunting Grim Reapers already…..”
Luce mumbled, looking downcast.
“W-well, that’s a good thing. Remembering the opponent’s Skills, the starting movements for those, and reliably being able to take advantage of the opportunity they offer is the basics of battle.”
Even if you fight the same opponents for a time, you start to approach fighting other monsters with the same method after a while.
If you are fighting solely based on habit, then you will hit a wall sooner or later.
“It’s good to stay positive, but….haven’t our chances to find a Skill Book went down to nearly hopeless by now…..?”
“Uhm, uh, yeah…..”
We are too low on stamina and MP to keep searching for Grim Reapers for too much longer.
We could take down one more if we manage to find one right away, if that.
Although if we take a break at the nearest village, then most likely the Phantasmal Dungeon would have disappeared by then….
Although, if it’s just Snow, Izabella and us two who are inside of this place, then maybe the Phantasmal Dungeon might persist for a while…..?
No, it’s best to expect that other adventurers might be present as well.
Celt was aware of this place, so at least the ones he told might be here as well.
B rank adventurers in a party of three or more should be more than enough to at least check this place out.
Furthermore, by the time we arrived here, this Dungeon was here for two days already.
We shouldn’t expect the place to remain after one more day.
“….it’s possible other adventurers might have found a [Reaper Assassin] Skill Book. Let’s explore the underground shops in the coming days and hopefully find some place that sells it.”
“But….adventurers around our level have quite a bit of money, right? Even Hilde, the Magic Swordsman was able to come up with 50 million gold….”
“Although she needed to switch to a Bear Shield to be able to do that.”
It’s well known that B rank and above adventurers are all most likely sitting on quite a nest egg.
There are many people in this world that decide to become adventurers with the aspirations to become like the powerful B rank adventurers they look up to.
“There aren’t that many people that frequent those underground shops, right…? Although they usually turn a blind eye to it, there is still some risk….”
“Well, that’s true I guess….”
“The chance that a B rank party that managed to hear about the Dungeon despite the information blockade ordered by Snow-san would manage to get a [Reaper Assassin] Skill Book drop from a Grim Reaper…..then try to sell it to an underground shop should be fairly low, right?”
“….w-well, it’s not zero.”
I replied with difficulty to Luce’s perfectly reasonable observation.
Trying to contact Celt, Mabel, or maybe even Kalos, who are pretty well connected, to find out which adventurers entered this Dungeon might be another viable route to take.
Asking the Guild Master, Hallein, for something like this would simply be too much.
She is on the side that’s supposed to enforce these things.
If I were to brazenly ask for something like that, then she wouldn’t be able to overlook it due to her position.
At that moment….I could hear something like a faint scream.
I immediately turned towards the direction I heard it from.
“What is it, Elma-san?”
“I heard a scream just now.”
Perhaps an adventurer came up short against a monster.
This area was still far from where the Dream Lord could appear.
It would be dangerous to go too deep, but if it’s against a normal monster, then we should be able to help out.
I wanted to hunt another Grim Reaper if possible, but….I guess it can’t be helped.
The lives of people are much more important.
“A scream….should we check out what happened?”
I nodded to Luce’s question.