WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Irevi

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Chapter 36: Jeonbung-i

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We'd defeated the Golem without much trouble, but honestly, the three of them weren't all that skilled.

It was only natural that their stats and attack power were lower than mine, so I had no intention of criticizing that.

Their problem was everything besides their stats. I couldn't really judge Kim Jina since she was a Mage, but the two on the front line were a mess.

First, Kim Jinseok, the level 45 Gladiator.

Even if there was a separate tank, did it make any sense for him to use dual swords?

I'd practiced several weapon techniques on the third floor, including fighting with two swords at once.

Not long after, I decided it had no practical use and quit. Dual swords were a fucking stupid technique.

Setting aside the disadvantage of giving up a shield, there were barely any situations where you could properly use both swords at once.

You might think two swords would double your attack patterns and let you pull off flashy chains of attacks, but that was just a fantasy.

If anything, your movements became far simpler than when using a single sword with both hands.

With one sword held in both hands, you could keep a combo going endlessly just by smoothly moving your wrists and elbows.

To pull off a combo with dual swords, you had to twist your whole body around like an idiot, and even then it might not work.

I'd tried to find the best way to make full use of both swords myself, but the final result was ridiculous.

The most efficient method was to use one sword solely for attacking and the other solely for defense.

In other words, dual swords were an inferior version of sword-and-shield.

Sure, you could hold two swords of different lengths and use unpredictable attacks.

But if that was the goal, using a one-handed axe instead of a second sword would give you far more unusual and varied attacks.

On top of that, Kim Jinseok used two identical longswords.

There might have been some advantage if he used two short swords, but that wasn't even the case.

The funny part was that Kim Jinseok carried a small shield too.

Apparently, when he needed to give up damage and tank, he switched to a sword-and-shield setup. What a joke.

Next was the level 44 rude-ass Holy Knight.

That bastard clearly carried his hammer as decoration.

There was nothing wrong with focusing on tanking, but even when he had a chance to land an effective hit with his hammer, he never swung it.

He just kept blocking with the shield in one hand. If that was all he planned to do, shouldn't he throw away the hammer and use a two-handed shield instead?

I could've believed the thing in his hand was a hammer-shaped wand.

Then there was the problem both of them shared.

They used way too many skills.

Sure, you had to use skills often to raise their proficiency, but even taking that into account, they used them needlessly.

Skills tied to masteries worked by making your body automatically perform a technique once you made a specific motion.

That meant that once you activated a skill, you couldn't change your movement halfway through.

There had only been one Golem, so it was fine, but what would they do if another suddenly showed up and joined the fight?

Beyond that, every movement they made in battle was careless enough that I couldn't even list them all.

They fought as if it were natural for their party members to cover their openings.

If I wanted to put it nicely, I could call that trust. All I saw was a weakness against unexpected variables.

Was that only because I was a solo player?

I didn't know.

* * *

After that, Golems appeared one at a time at regular intervals and blocked our path.

Each time, the three of them worked together in their own way to defeat them, and the results were pretty good.

[Festival Coin]

[Meteorstone Fragment]

[Golem's Golden Fragment]

This time, a single Golem had dropped three items. Kim Jina was thrilled when she heard about the drops.

“Wow, another fragment? That's already our third one. This is a total jackpot.”

“Is that a lot?”

“Yeah. In dungeons around this level, the main drops normally come from the boss, two or three fragments at a time.”

She bounced around, saying we were incredibly lucky to have gotten three before even facing the boss.

“Do you have some kind of Luck buff on you? Why are they dropping so well?”

Ah, I'd forgotten about that. I lived off White Rolls for every meal, so I always had a Luck buff.

When I told Kim Jina, she made a huge fuss, saying she'd thought the drops seemed suspiciously good.

She even squealed about how I was some kind of good-luck totem and how glad she was that I'd joined them.

“Jinhyeok, you don't have to do anything today. Just giving us your Luck buff means you're pulling your weight. No, you're pulling the weight of two people!”

The rude Holy Knight looked uncomfortable, but I naturally ignored him. What did he expect me to do?

I understood why he was acting so bitchy, but that didn't mean I had to put up with all of it.

He hadn't seriously crossed the line yet, so I'd let it slide, but if he kept acting like an asshole, I might not be able to hold back.

A little later, something unexpected happened while I walked through the dungeon with an excited Kim Jina.

-Rumble!

The ground beneath us began to shake. It was similar to when a Golem appeared, but the shaking was unusually intense.

The Holy Knight quickly raised his shield and hammer, while Kim Jinseok readied his dual swords... Ugh. I sighed every time I looked at those things.

Anyway, since we had no idea where the monsters would appear, we took positions around Kim Jina with her in the center.

-Crash!

The shaking ground soon split apart with a thunderous sound.

Then a huge hand rose from the crack. It looked similar to the hands of the Golems we'd fought so far.

That wasn't all. One by one, Golem hands rose from the ground, and the Golems slowly stood up and surrounded us.

They were the same Golems we'd fought before. Let's see, one, two, three, four, five, six... There were quite a few.

“W-What is this... a trap? The strategy posts didn't say anything about this!”

Kim Jina looked flustered at the sight of so many Golems. Just as I thought, she couldn't think straight once something unexpected happened.

The Tower of Trials had been thoroughly explored for over ten years, but Festival mini-dungeons were different.

The event only opened for a short period once every three years, so no proper strategies had been established.

Some information had been released, but rare special systems like this probably hadn't been discovered yet.

“Jina, get behind me!”

The Holy Knight grabbed the flustered Kim Jina and pulled her behind him, raising his shield. Was he really trying to show off even now?

Wasn't this exactly the kind of situation where the tank needed to take the lead and break through? What was he planning to do by standing his ground there?

No, this worked out perfectly. He could just hide there with his shield.

-Step.

I briefly fiddled with my sword before stepping forward. The rude Holy Knight suddenly raised his voice.

“What are you doing, you Jeonbung-i bastard! Do you have a death wish?!”

Oh, what was this? Was he telling me to hide behind him too? He was rude, but maybe he wasn't such a bad guy after all.

“I'm not dying, so shut up and stay put, you Holy Knight roach bastard.”

I snickered and pulled a heavy iron ball from my inventory.

* * *

Throwing had been one of my main attack methods since the first floor.

As someone had put it, as a Jeonbung-i who'd been solo-playing, I desperately needed some kind of ranged attack, anything at all.

The iron ball in my hand was an item available on the sixth floor. It was junk that wouldn't sell for much even at a shop.

But combined with the [Throwing] skill I'd honed all this time, it became a far stronger means of attack than most weapons.

My opponents were Golems that were big but not very smart. They even had a clear weakness: the cores in their chests.

The cores were only tough enough to shatter after two of Kim Jina's Magic Missiles.

I didn't know exactly how strong Kim Jina was, but I could make a rough guess from the party's overall level.

I tensed my shoulders and hurled the iron ball in my right hand with all my strength.

-Boom!

With a sound like an explosion, the Golem's chest, where its core was located, was completely destroyed.

Just as expected, my throw was stronger than Kim Jina's magic attack.

I put away the sword I'd been fiddling with and took out several more iron balls I'd prepared in my inventory.

-Boom! Boom! Boom!

Every time I threw an iron ball, another Golem went down.

They said the recommended level was 40 to 50, but maybe because these were just regular mobs, they were ridiculously weak. Their cores had way too little durability.

It was hard to shatter them in one blow unless I threw with all my strength, and I was throwing iron balls, not pebbles.

Still, I could've easily cleared this with solo play.

[Who is causing a disturbance in my temple!]

After I smashed every Golem that had crawled out of the ground, a system message suddenly appeared before my eyes.

Something like a statue made entirely of gold crawled up through the crack where the Golems' hands had emerged.

[BOSS - Shattered Golden Ruler]

It was the mini-dungeon boss I'd briefly seen in the Open Community. I drew my sword again.

“B-Boss! We should fight too, hurry!”

“It's fine. Just stay there.”

I waved Kim Jina away as she tried to join in late. What was the point of helping now?

I didn't need any help, so they could just watch how a solo-playing Jeonbung-i fought.

Footnotes:

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