WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Irevi

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 24: Ruins of the Lizardmen

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They say steady effort matters more than natural talent when it comes to success.

As someone who'd never consistently worked at anything in my life, it was hard for me to relate. Lately, though, things had changed a little.

-Thunk!

I brought my sword down on the Lizardman's tail as it came for my legs, pinning it to the ground.

A Lizardman's tail was a flexible mass of highly elastic muscle. The force behind a swing was much stronger than most kicks.

But because it grew near the pelvis, swinging it carelessly would throw off the Lizardman's balance.

That was even more true when it had tried to attack, only to have its tail struck instead.

-Smash!

I slammed my shield into the staggering Lizardman's jaw, then dodged the spear thrust coming from behind.

I spun around and gave the Lizardman attacking from the rear the same treatment with my shield, then pulled out my sword.

I stabbed the neck of the Lizardman I'd knocked down first, then turned back and finished the other one too.

After making sure there were no more Lizardmen nearby, I put away my sword and shield, sat down, and pulled out a White Roll to chew on.

“One-stripe guys are easy now...”

It had already been a month since I entered the third floor. I must've fought Lizardmen over a hundred times during that month.

I'd thought I had absolutely no talent for physical work or exercise, but after putting in that much time, I'd actually become decent at it.

I didn't know whether this counted as success, but it was definitely the fruit of my effort.

Now, if I was up against Low-Ranking Warrior Lizardmen with a single White Stripe, I could easily win even in a two-on-one fight.

Of course, there was still a basic difference in physical ability, so I didn't think I'd surpassed Lizardmen through skill alone.

In fact, the last time I fought a Lizardman with three White Stripes, I'd taken a pretty solid hit. I still won, though.

Some time had passed since then, so if I fought one again now, I was confident I could win without taking a hit.

“Should I finally head into the ruins?”

Anyway, other than the occasional three-stripe Lizardman, there were no suitable opponents left in the areas near the village.

“Status Window.”

Seo Jinhyeok Lv.47 (Warrior)

HP: 690/690

MP: 355/355

Strength: 71 (57+14)

Agility: 51 (47+4)

Durability: 53 (47+6)

Intelligence: 49 (47+2)

That was my current Status Window with all my gear equipped. I'd killed plenty of Lizardmen, but my level had only gone up by two.

I was hunting Lizardmen to improve skills unrelated to my stats, but that only made the feeling of stagnation more irritating.

It was natural for my stats to stagnate, but my improvement in skill couldn't slow down.

There was almost nothing left for me to gain from fighting Low-Ranking Warrior Lizardmen, so it was time to find stronger enemies and expand my hunting grounds.

That meant I should start pushing through the quest I'd been putting off too.

* * *

After returning to the village and doing the bare minimum of maintenance, I spoke to Expedition Leader Windsor.

“Ah, back early today. You're really something, you know that? I have no idea how you manage to move around a swamp crawling with Lizardmen so well! Do you have some secret? I'm curious!”

One word from me turned into three from him. Windsor talked far more than any other Non-Player Character.

“So, what brings you here? You hadn't said a word for so long that I was worried you'd gone mute.”

“I was thinking of checking out those ruins you mentioned.”

“Ooh, you're interested in the ruins too? Of course you are. That's how an adventurer should be! Just wait a moment!”

Exploring the ruins, the third floor's main mini-dungeon quest, involved uncovering the map as you cleared the dungeon, then fighting a boss monster at the end, much like the Labyrinth Area found on every floor.

According to the strategy posts in the Open Community, the boss of the third-floor ruins dungeon had already been cleared long ago and never respawned.

Like other limited-spawn monsters, it was probably a boss you could only encounter once.

Either way, the ruins dungeon was also a great hunting ground where I could find enemies a little stronger than the Lizardmen near the village.

Naturally, I'd planned to head there once I could easily defeat Low-Ranking Warrior Lizardmen.

But when I actually went to find it, the entrance to the ruins was tightly shut. It was completely different from what the Open Community said.

The ruins weren't open from the start, but gradually opened as I progressed through Windsor's quest.

“Alright, all our Expedition Team Members are ready. We can leave whenever you are!”

Windsor, carrying a large pack, stood before me with six Expedition Team Members who were each armed in their own way.

Would this be my first party play, or would it be solo play with seven burdens tagging along?

“Then let's go.”

Honestly, I wasn't expecting much.

* * *

Of course, Lizardmen appeared on the road to the ruins too.

When the Expedition Team Members and Windsor encountered one, they were startled and hurriedly drew their weapons.

I hadn't expected much from the start, but it didn't look like they'd be any help.

“Move aside.”

I pushed past the Expedition Team Members in my way and stepped forward. The Lizardman that appeared was a Low-Ranking Warrior Lizardman with a shield and spear.

It had two White Stripes, so it wasn't a difficult opponent. I raised my sword and closed the distance quickly.

A spear was an excellent weapon with both range and power, but if you closed the distance in an instant like this, it became useless.

Of course, fighting a spearman this way meant you had to be far superior in speed and reflexes.

For me, with my superior Agility stat, that wasn't very difficult.

-Stab!

The Lizardman quickly protected itself with its shield, but I knocked it aside with brute force and stabbed it in the neck.

My attack power wasn't high enough for that one blow to end the fight. Even in that situation, the Lizardman tried to counterattack by swinging its tail.

But I'd memorized the timing of these bastards' tail attacks long ago. I kicked the swinging tail instead.

-Thud!

The Lizardman's lower body lost its balance because of the reckless tail attack. It was the perfect chance to trip it.

I grappled with the Lizardman and knocked it down, then stabbed the same spot with my sword again to finish it.

“Let's keep going.”

The Expedition Team Members just stood there with blank looks on their faces.

When I asked what was wrong, Windsor scratched his head with a taken-aback expression.

“No, you... you're incredibly strong. Don't tell me you've been killing Lizardmen by yourself this whole time?”

“Yeah. So?”

“We naturally assumed you knew some trick for avoiding Lizardmen... You really surprised us.”

Come to think of it, he'd said things like that before when I let him ramble.

He'd asked if there was some shortcut he didn't know about, and how I could get around without being spotted by Lizardmen.

It looked like he hadn't even considered the possibility that I'd been going around killing Lizardmen by myself.

Then again, it made sense from a Non-Player Character's perspective.

Lizardmen were fairly strong monsters that multiple Challengers were supposed to fight together.

My performance was far beyond the level of an average third-floor Challenger.

I hadn't expected to have that fact confirmed again like this.

“You could've told us beforehand. Still, it's good to have someone reliable with us...”

For some reason, Windsor grumbled as he put away the hand axe he'd drawn earlier.

If your ally was strong, shouldn't you just be happy about it? What was with him?

* * *

After that, we encountered Lizardmen three more times.

One had a single White Stripe, and two had two White Stripes.

Since I couldn't expect any combat ability from the Expedition Team Members, I fought alone every time.

“You must be tired after fighting so much. How about we rest for a bit?”

Windsor suggested taking breaks several times, but I refused. This much wasn't enough to drain my stamina.

“You really are something... Alright, let's get going. We should be close now.”

We moved slowly like that and finally reached the ruins in the swamp.

The entrance was blocked by a massive stone gate covered in dense, unreadable writing.

I wasn't good at foreign languages, but no matter how I looked at it, it wasn't a language from Earth. It was probably some ancient script or something.

“Ooh, that's right. My guess was correct. The artifact we found was the key to this place!”

Windsor seemed to read the writing on the stone gate with ease, then took a large stone from his pocket and held it against the gate.

-Clank, clank!

A mechanical sound completely unsuited to a stone rang out, and the huge stone gate slowly opened to either side.

[Where Lightning Sleeps]

When I stepped inside the ruins, a system message similar to the one that appeared when entering a Labyrinth Area floated before my eyes.

Was that the name of this dungeon?

They said the Armament that Rules Lightning lay dormant here, and it looked like that was true.

My original goal was to hunt here, but now I was interested in that armament too.

Maybe I could get a hidden element of Unique or Epic grade, like I'd dreamed of on the first floor.

Let's take a look.

Footnotes:

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