Worthless Skill Escape (WN)

Chapter 77

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TL: ALT

Chapter 77 – Warning

I went through the Kururi Castle dungeon, trying out my skill combos (temporarily).

There was an escape portal at the end of the sixth floor, but I passed it unnoticed and went to the seventh floor.

I made my way through the complicated Baumkuchen, relying on the presence of enemies and the Mini Map.

There were several hard-to-understand hidden doors and lever gimmicks, but I was able to find them thanks to the Treasure Detection, which showed me the location of the treasure chest.

The treasure chest contained a Universal Gear.

I’ve collected this gear many times since the first floor.

Strangely, I have no idea what it’s used for.

The level of the enemies increases as the floor progresses, but from my point of view, there is no difference that I can feel.

I only noticed that the level of the enemies increased when the SP bonus increased.

The Karakuri Assault Soldier, Karakuri Captain, and Karakuri Drone Swarm have been added to the monsters that appear on the seventh floor.

The Karakuri Assault Soldiers, equipped with assault spears with explosives in the spear tips, are troublesome because of their Charge and Self-Destruct Attack.

Obviously, it would be easier to deal with them with magic, but this time, the goal was not to make things easy.

Instead, I used the Spear Barrage skill, which is inferior in skill level, to deal with the Charge and the Self-Destruct Attack by parrying it and using the Martial Arts and Throw skills to kick it away without a moment’s delay.

Due to the eruption of the Self-Destruct Attack, the Karakuri Tank, which was the target of the kick, was destroyed.

The Karakuri Captain is a monster that looks like an upgraded version of the Karakuri Soldier and is a good training partner for weapon skills.

While the Karakuri Soldier is a peeling blue, the Karakuri Captain is a bright red.

Just because it is red, it does not mean that it has triple Agility, but it does have a level 4 Spearmanship skill, a level 2 One-Handed skill, and a Command skill, which improves coordination between allies.

Their ability stats are also slightly higher than Karakuri Soldiers.

It seems that these two types of monsters are different types of monsters.

Karakuri Soldiers do not rise through the ranks to become Karakuri Captains.

The base stats (at level 1) are different, to begin with.

A Karakuri Captain is a born elite, and no matter how hard a Karakuri Soldier works, it will never become a superior in its lifetime.

The Karakuri Captain’s spears are much sharper than those of ordinary soldiers.

But,

“You can’t hit me!”

I parry the elite captain’s brilliant thrust with the Sword Technique I have on my right sword.

The Karakuri Captain is knocked out of its stance.

I unleash Slash with my left sword, a sub-skill of Sword Technique.

However, the Karakuri Captain blocks my Slash with the hilt of its spear.

That was the worst possible reaction.

The Slash I had just unleashed was also the first step of the Cross Slash, a sub-skill of the Twin Sword Technique.

The sword in my right hand, twisting in succession, sliced the Karakuri Captain’s torso across the middle.

And this horizontal split is the first step of Tsubame Gaeshi, a sub-skill of the Katana Technique.

Using the Katana Technique with a sword is less powerful, but the speed of the sword is still very appealing.

The loss of power can be compensated by using Slash at the same time.

A side cut in the opposite direction, cut back with blinding speed, sliced the steel torso of the Karakuri Captain in two.

The last thing left was the Karakuri Drone Swarm.

It is a monster made up of three small Karakuri Drones in a set.

Although each drone is weakened, they can make a precise, coordinated attack with their Data Link.

However, the fact that there are three drones in a set means that its HP is shared by all three.

If I hit each of the three with a Scatter Shot from Archery, I can reduce their shared HP by three shots.

Scatter Shot is originally a skill that shoots arrows at three different targets, but in the case of the Karakuri Drone Swarm, each of them seems to count as one target.

With this monster, Scatter Shot has more attacks per second than Rapid Fire.

However, the power of Scatter Shot, which is originally a control skill, is low.

Therefore, the power of Scatter Shot can be increased by adding Shot, a sub-skill of Archery, to each Scatter Shot.

Of course, I didn’t forget about Sniper and Bull’s Eye.

Thanks to my high Luck, all three shots seemed to be critical.

The Karakuri Drone Swarm exploded before it could get me into its machine gun range.

Only one of the three was left because I used Knockout.

…I progressed steadily through the Kururi Castle dungeon, repeating the same battle.

After going through the eighth and ninth floors in the same way, I finally arrived at the boss’s room.

“Now, let’s get some skills before the boss… Hmm? There’s a guild chat coming up.”

I took out my phone and tapped on the Dungeons Go Pro notification.

“Dear Paladin Knights members.

This is an urgent message.

There are currently several dungeon floods in Tokyo and neighboring prefectures in the Kanto region.

If you are exploring dungeons in these areas, please leave the area immediately.

It has been confirmed that these simultaneous floods are not a cascade.

Also, depending on future developments, we may ask off-duty personnel to mobilize.

Please stay in touch if possible.”

“This is…”

The message is from Haitani-san.

It is sent to the general chat of the Paladin Knights.

The message already had several replies from other members that I didn’t know about.

“Simultaneous Flood…? But she said it wasn’t a cascade?”

By “confirming that it’s not a cascade,” I assume she means that the Voice of Heaven did not issue a cascade warning.

There’s no other way to confirm it for sure.

There is no way that Haitani-san would write that it was “confirmed” with vague information.

“Was God right when she said that?”

The God of the dungeon shrine said that there have been some disturbing developments in the dungeon recently.

She said that the dungeon’s resources have been over-accumulating.

“…What should I do?”

Then, the DGP received a new incoming notification.

It was a text chat from Serika.

“Yu-kun, where are you?”

“In front of the boss room of the Kururi Castle Dungeon in Chiba.”

“It’s a big problem. There are floods everywhere…”

“I saw Haitani-san’s message.”

The last time I was in the dungeon, I was caught in a Flood, but this time, there is no sign of a Flood in this dungeon.

There is a possibility of Flooding in the future, but at least for now, everything is calm.

“Do you need help?”

“I may need to ask for help. There have been seven Floods in Tokyo alone. The information about the neighboring prefectures is not clear yet, but it may extend to our hometown.”

“Then I’d better go back to our hometown.”

“Yes. In Tokyo, the Explorers Association moves quickly, and there are many explorers. I want you to go back to our hometown and be prepared for any unforeseen circumstances.”

“Is there still time to defeat the boss here?”

“You’re already in front of the boss room, right? Then I think it will be okay. It’s not like there’s been a Flood in our hometown yet.”

If it means waiting just in case, there will be enough time to defeat the boss here.

If the situation is really bad, it can be said that it would be better to level raise the boss here and make good money.

If it is an A-rank dungeon, there is no need to worry about draining the dungeon by raising the level of the boss.

If it is a situation where other dungeons often Flood, it might be safer to let the dungeon run dry.

Even if I don’t deplete the dungeon, I can reduce the possibility of this dungeon Flooding by wasting the dungeon’s resources by level-raising the boss.

But… I see.

If the dungeon is Flooded, can I level-raise the boss without worrying about depletion?

If the resources are high enough to cause Flooding, doing it once or twice won’t cause depletion.

Even if depletion were to occur, it would not be pursued too deeply because it would be an anomaly after the Flood.

“What should I do? I should go to Tokyo for now. No, no.”

For a moment, I wondered if it would be better to go to Tokyo instead of my hometown, but I should follow Serika’s advice here.

My hometown is much more remote, and in the unlikely event of a flood, the damage would be much greater.

Normally, the association in Tokyo would send a special unit, but with so many floods in the city, there was little hope.

Serika asked me unofficially because the association didn’t have enough personnel to send to my hometown.

“I understand. I will return to our hometown as soon as I defeat the boss here.”

But it’ll take a few hours because I have to take an express bus and a train to get there.

I just have to hope that the transportation is good.

“Sorry. Please take care of our hometown. I know I’m asking you to do this but don’t be too impatient with the boss fight, okay?”

“I know.”

I thought that was the end of it, but after a short pause, a chat came up.

“I have some unconfirmed information.”

“What is it?”

“Some of the explorers sent to help quell the Flood have been out of contact.”

“What did you say?”

“Minazawa-san, who also led his guild in the mission, is out of contact.”

Minazawa-san is the inspector who followed Serika when I first rescued Honoka-chan.

He once told me about Rakan’s movement at the association’s headquarters.

I heard that he is a very skilled person, ranked in the top 100 of the national level ranking.

“I know that there are sometimes communication problems during Floods. But to be completely out of contact is…”

“You mean something is wrong.”

“Considering Minazawa-san’s ability and the size of the Flood, it’s hard to imagine that something unexpected could happen.”

“Maybe there’s something unnatural about this Flood.”

Of course, God’s warning was the reason I thought that.

But if I told God’s warning as it is now, it would only cause confusion.

I should have told Serika about God beforehand.

“Serika, be careful. Call me if you need me.”

“Yes, thank you. I’ll be more careful than usual.”