Chapter 36
[I thought I was going to die! I was really about to die!]
[Didn't I tell you not to fall off? So why did you go and do the exact opposite?]
[How can you not fall off!]
[I didn't fall off!]
[faipfebsdbs;bsd]
[Enough. The results from the 4th floor will tell us exactly.]
[Tell us what?]
[How far up you can climb in this place]
***
[Round 2, Day 29. 8:30]
It was ideal for me to focus these last few days on my growth and training.
Thanks to that, I've become accustomed to using Blink.
It was still difficult to use as an attack, but adequate for the purpose of closing a gap closing or escaping.
Using the Talaria's Wings skill freely however was still troublesome.
At least I was able to fly in the sky by using the Glide skill instead of having to flap those wings constantly to fly.
One more thing to note was that none of my resistance skills have improved.
It seems their levels have become too high for the grinding in the Waiting Room to have an effect.
And, with only a short amount of time left for the 2nd Round to finish, I thought of challenging the 4th Floor to test out the newly skills - Blink and Talaria's Wings.
Clearing the floor would be difficult considering the time, so it would mainly be reconnaissance of the beginning area.
[Will you enter the 4th Floor?]
Yeap.
A bright light surrounded my body, with a familiar echoing of the portal.
[Welcome to Tutorial Stage, h.e.l.l Difficulty Floor 4]
I quickly scanned the area as I entered the floor.
It had the usual polished stone corridor.
The only difference was that, the corridor had gotten much wider.
It was about 10m wide.
As for the height... forget it.
It was too dark, and there was not a single object I could use to estimate the height.
Just looking up wasn’t enough to give an accurate measure.
I guessed it was probably about the same as the ceiling of Inchon airport.
Anyway, the fact that the corridor had become larger was lucky for me.
Good luck for Ho Jae. Hahaha (TL note: original is p.r.o.nounced Ho Jae (which means good luck) for Ho Jae. It's a bad pun)
I begin to take out the equipments from the Inventory that I had bought with Kirikiri's advice.
I wore a new leather chest armour instead of the old one that I'd been using.
It was a s.h.i.+ny, black leather armour; I had no clue as to where that leather had came from.
Afterwards I wore a pair of leather pants, boots, gloves and a belt.
They were all dyed in black making a set.
It had been quite costly to buy all the equipments in black leather as they were uncommon.
If it hadn’t been for the G.o.ds and their extra points, making a set would have been difficult.
Of course, there was no bonus for buying them in the same colour.
It just looked cool.
On the belt was a throwing dagger as advised by Kirikiri.
Its effectiveness would drop in midrange, but it would be useful to create an opening..
I could still use it as a sidearm in case I lost my sword.
I could somewhat guess what the theme of 4th Floor was based on Kirikiri’s advice to bring a throwing weapon.
It meant that there was probably a target that I must hit out of range.
This time, I may need to fight monsters in combat instead of using the usual machinated traps.
Based on the info from the Community,
On Easy Difficulty mode, the first monster was a walking mushroom man.
In the Normal mode, a goblin.
Information about the type of monster in the Hard mode had yet to come.
[Kuwaaaaaaa]
I heard a sharp warcry from further ahead.
I guess a monster was coming out.
As the tension was building up, I firmly held onto my sword and s.h.i.+eld and checked my equipment again.
With everything in place, I marched towards where the warcry had come from.
It was a typical green skinned monster that you’d see in cartoons or novels.
His skin was an unusual green.
His body jam packed with muscle, comparable to that of an Olympic wrestling gold medalist.
Giant fangs.
Red eyes.
Height of 2m.
Why was this guy my first opponent?
d.a.m.n, I could actually tell how different h.e.l.l was from other modes of difficulty just by looking at the monster instead of the traps.
The goblin from Normal Difficulty was short - around 100cm in height.
He was also unarmed.
The tip was to use the long reach of the weapon and fight from a distance.
But the monster in front of me was fully equipped.
In steel.
He looked less like a monster and more like a medieval knight.
His helmet, chest armour and boots were all made out of solid steel.
Only his arms and thighs were exposed.
In his hand was a giant axe.
I couldn’t even imagine how much it would weigh.
It was a vicious axe, one I probably could lift even with two hands, let alone swing.
And he was holding it with one hand.
At least the handle of the axe was short.
It would have been a dire situation if he had a long weapon along with long arms.
Haah, what to do?
The monster stood in the same spot, staring, as if he was taunting me to attack.
Was I supposed to charge into him?
I glimpsed at the gladius in my right hand.
It was too short.
This sword had done its role sufficiently well until now.
Mainly for self harm.
But, at this moment, I wished that I had chosen a long weapon like a spear instead of such a short one.
Even a longsword would have be much better.
What the h.e.l.l do I do now?
Let's think positively.
Kirikiri had not advised me to switch my weapon.
Instead what she had recommended was to wear armour and have a side-arm.
That meant this weapon was enough for me to beat this monster.
A wooden round s.h.i.+eld and a gladius.
To deal with the difference in reach, I would have to jump towards the monster to get in close range like an infighter.
Me?
Against that?
Closing the distance wasn't hard thanks to Blink.
The problem was afterwards.
Hm, let's try blocking his attack for now.
My main weapon was the s.h.i.+eld, not the sword.
I blocked and parried the attacks, and