My second life as a dungeon

I hadn’t entered the room yet so I was still able to look around without worrying about being attacked, as I did this I counted seven regular slimes and four earth slimes bouncing around the room. By this point I was getting pretty good at judging a slime's strength by just its size and energy so I could tell that these ones were stronger than anything I had fought up to this point.

Since I dictated when the fight began I wanted to start it by using one of my bigger spells that takes a while to cast. Over the next thirty seconds sickly black mana slowly condensed into my wand before shooting out in a beam that struck the boss and wrapped around it. The beam slowly drained it of energy, slowing it down and making it so that its attacks wouldn’t hit as hard but not killing it.

As my spell went off I ordered my undead companions to charge into the room and attack the closest enemy. Before any of the slimes could react the hobgoblin and the death dog ran into the room side by side quickly coming across two green slimes. The giant hobgoblin swung at the first one and shattered the core in the blink of an eye while the second one received a swipe from one of the undead canine paws before being finished by a second swipe.

With their first targets dealt with they continued to rush into the room looking for more prey.  Not to be left behind, my dretch archer shot two arrows in quick succession at another green slime that was away from the path of destruction the other two were quickly forming. The slime managed to jump out of the way of the first arrow but failed to escape the second arrow which easily pierced through the goo before hitting the core.

I managed to channel my second spell before the slimes could react as two ghostly tendrils hit the boss, unfortunately the ooze seemed to be very tanky as I couldn’t tell if it had even been damaged at all. The monsters finally started to react to our presence as four green slimes gathered in front of the two rampaging zombies in an effort to stop them. Three more came around various stone pillars and started to make their way towards me. 

The first group managed to get a few hits on both zombies, managing to work together quite well as when my death dog dodged one attack another slime slammed into it before it had a chance to get good footing. Meanwhile two of them simultaneously attacked the hobgoblin from opposite sides so that it could only block one letting the other one go through. If there had been more of them or if they were tankier I would have been worried but there were only four of them and they were easily killed.

This was made evident by the hobgoblin sending a [Cleave] through all of them, damaging them enough so that two of them were easily finished off by the death dog crushing them under its paws. The other two were heavily damaged, only hanging on to life thanks to being a few levels higher than the green slimes we had previously fought on this floor. During all of this the boss was slowly making its way towards the fight but hadn’t made it there quite yet.

The stone slimes finally joined the fight by shooting three pebbles each at me and my undead archer. We managed to dodge most of them thanks to our high dexterity but one of them managed to hit me as I couldn’t see the slime that shot it, thankfully it didn’t hurt too bad. I then used the fact that I had perfect control of my undead companions to have my dretch to shoot two arrows at the hobgoblin in such a way that when the sentinel dodged the arrows they both struck one of the remaining green slimes.

As I was dodging and twisting out of the way of a bunch of projectiles I sent another two ghostly tendrils at the ooze. This time I could tell it had lasting damage as it looked slightly smaller than before but it was still nowhere near dying. The green slimes had almost made their way to me but my zombies were now free so my soulless dog quickly rushed over to protect me, unfortunately it could only stop two of them so the final one managed to reach me.

I was concentrating on my next spell when it reached me and I received a heavy hit in my side that sent me tumbling a few feet before I could get back up. Some of the elemental slimes took advantage of this opportunity to send a few more pebbles my way. I managed to dodge one of them by rolling away but two struck me in my back causing me to wince as I went down to half health and I started to worry that this was the end of my delve.

During this my dretch had already shot the slime that hit me before it could reach the ground, popping it like a water balloon. The undead sentinel rushed to the closest earth slime before bringing the sword down on it too fast for the slime to dodge, squishing it. Now that we were starting to attack the stone slimes they could no longer focus on me so instead they started to send shots at the hobgoblin while desperately bouncing away from it.

I continued to send more spells at the Ooze, letting everyone else deal with the slimes. The spells had started to do more and more damage to it and now it was finally about half the size it had been at the start of the fight. My undead dog finished off the two remaining green slimes but grabbed their cores with each of its mouths before crushing them when the giant ooze finally reached it.

The floor boss then stretched its body in multiple places, sending five acidic spears at the death dog. This was too many for it to dodge, even with its extreme dexterity, so a few managed to pierce its body dealing quite a bit of damage. The spears then started to slowly retract back into its body. Three of the earth slimes that were far enough away from the hobgoblin to not have to worry about it sent more stone bullets at me.

I managed to dodge all of them though as there weren't nearly as many projectiles to dodge as before and I knew where they all were. Meanwhile my hobgoblin had finally reached the two earth slimes that were running away from it, they were also close enough that a single [Cleave] was able to hit both of them into the air before they were hit by a normal swing that went through both of them, finishing them off.

Next the dretch archer concentrated on one of the earth slimes as it aimed but just before it let the arrow loose it twisted so that the arrow was actually shot at a different slime before immediately shooting another arrow at it. Not expecting this the slime received two arrows to the core and died. Since most of the earth slimes were now dead I didn’t have to split my focus on dodging and casting a spell so I could use another one of my big spells.

This created a beam of green energy that shot out of my wand at the diminished boss, similar to the spell I used to finish off the previous boss. I had put more energy into it than last time so it was a bit bigger and did a bunch more damage, unfortunately the boss barely survived the blast. It was now as big as the smallest Ooze though so I knew it was close to being finished.

Seeing as my dog was a bad match for the boss it ran away from the ooze and to one of the last remaining earth slimes before cornering it and quickly striking it with both of its front paws, shattering it. The last slime was finished off by the dretch archer with a few arrows while the hobgoblin rushed to stop the boss ooze attacking any of its squishier targets. While the hobgoblin held it in place I shot out a final tendril that finished it off.

I took a minute to gather myself before moving on, I hadn’t heard anyone talking about a fourth floor so I was a bit surprised to come across another portal instead of the dungeon core but I still quickly walked through it. As I was walking through the portal I also noticed that I had levelled up during that last fight which I was happy to see.

On the other side of the portal I was greeted by a small room similar to the caves that I had just exited from except it had an open arch that let me see out of the room and into a field. I expected the fights here to be around as difficult as that last boss fight so I rested in the small room for half an hour as my health regenerated back to full.

After half an hour was up I left the room and looked around at my surroundings. I could see three walls of fog, one behind me, one far in front of me and one to my right and the last direction was just more plains. The walls of fog were quite ominous and clearly a sign of where not to go so I just walked towards the furthest wall of fog to see what I might find.

I assumed that no monsters would be coming out of the fog so this would give me a good defensive position. This was quickly utilised as after only a couple minutes of walking I spotted my first encounter, a group of seven monsters. Thanks to being on flat terrain I spotted them from quite far away giving me a chance to look them over, although I couldn’t tell what kind of monster they were.

Two of them were fully armoured, two had robes on and seemed to be wielding quarterstaffs and the last three were clad in leather armour and wielded bows. This led me to the conclusion that they must be heavily reliant on ranged attacks and the flat terrain letting them see any enemies from far away. Seeing this gave me a plan that I put into action after getting slightly closer.

Once I was close enough I had my undead dog and hobgoblin sentinel charge at the front line together. At the last second the death dog changed directions to go around the two warriors and straight into the backline. Seeing this the warriors tried to follow but were easily stopped by the hobgoblin with a simple strike that forced them to block or die. The ranged monsters tried to shoot at their approaching doom but the death dog was too nimble and dodged most of their attacks.

Then, while the undead dog harried the ranged monsters, my dretch sent out a few arrows that managed to hit one of them, wounding it severely but not killing it outright. The two mages instantly started to heal the wounded archer which caused me to groan, this was going to be a long fight. During this the warriors were desperately battering at the hobgoblin with their swords but they barely moved the giant sentinel.

Two of the archers were too distracted running away from the two headed death machine to attack back but one of them managed to get a shot off at me that travelled too fast for me to dodge fully. I managed to get it to hit my shoulder so it didn’t deal as much damage as it could have but it still drained a lot of my health so I couldn’t afford to get hit again.

Next I sent four rays of fire at one of the mages that were healing the wounded archer, luckily they all managed to hit and even finished it off. This made me realise that the mages were pretty squishy so I told my dretch to focus on the other one. The melee between the hobgoblin and the warriors quickly became a brutal back and forth as every time the hobgoblin hit one of them it was hit four times in return.

The hobgoblin was obviously hitting much harder and could take many more hits than the warriors but I was still a bit worried. The archers couldn’t keep up with the undead canine and one of them even tripped, letting the death dog use both of its jaws to quickly end its life, one biting down on its neck while the other ripped off its arm. The dretch sent a few more shots out, some of which hit the mage, breaking its concentration momentarily but not killing it.

While the undead canine was busy chomping down on one of the archers the other two started to send arrows at me and the undead dretch. I already knew I could no longer just dodge them so instead I countered them by sending out small spheres of fire at the arrows, burning them before they could get to us. They only sent a few volleys before the death dog had finished the archer and was harassing them again.

Meanwhile one of the warriors finally made a mistake that the undead brute took full advantage of. It did this by swinging its massive sword in an upward arc that sent the monster flying ten metres into the air; it was dead before it landed. This left only one warrior to fight the hobgoblin, which was obviously a losing battle as was proven a few seconds later when the warrior was cut in half.

This signalled that the fight would soon be over as I managed to get a second where I didn’t need to counter an arrow so I sent an extra sphere of fire at the mage, finishing it off. One of the remaining archers had started to slow down and so was jumped on by the death dog. It managed to barely react in time to dodge backwards but it didn’t look where it dodged to and so ended up in the path of an arrow straight to the head, instantly killing it.

The last archer was easily dealt with as the hobgoblin and death dog trapped it in a pincer attack. When it finally died I started to walk towards them and finally realised that they were kobolds. A few seconds later they started to dissolve into mana and loot when something flashed as it appeared floating in the air before falling down.

I went over to it and saw that it was some kind of rectangular card reminiscent of the guild identification cards but made out of a strange material that I didn’t recognise. I wasn’t sure what it was for but I assumed it was important so I picked it up anyway before moving on wondering what the rest of the floor had to offer.