I—Lukas Zeiyu, Bronze-class adventurer—was pretty sure I’d discovered a whole new kind of hell.
Why, you ask? Well the answer was simple. Up until now, the most that Niedz, Gahedd, and I had been able to take on in a fight was an ordinary goblin or two—and that was when the three of us were fighting together. Yet somehow we’d found ourselves in the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters, where even Lucaris’s veteran adventurers hesitate to delve.
If that was all, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad—but there was more.
See, the folks who’d brought us here as porters—that being Boss Rentt, Boss Capitan, and Boss Diego—were just as strong as Lucaris’s veterans. Maybe even stronger, honestly. If all we’d needed to do was follow them around, we wouldn’t have been in much danger.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
I was currently face-to-face with five lesser sahagin holding small harpoons and chirping threateningly at us—meaning me, Niedz Labra, and Gahedd Odan. We were all Bronze-class adventurers and had been companions for so long that we couldn’t have gotten rid of each other if we tried. Niedz and Gahedd were my closest friends, and I’d lost count of the number of jobs we’d taken together as a party.
When it came to their skill level, though, I couldn’t exactly call them reliable. After all, they were only about as strong as I was. And sure, we had good days and bad ones, but I could pretty confidently say that trying to fight anything stronger than a pair of goblins would be biting off more than we could chew.
None of which changed the fact that we were currently staring down five lesser sahagin.
Of course, Rentt, Capitan, and Diego were behind us, so you might think that everything would turn out okay in the end. The thing was, this was what they’d said to us earlier:
“Until you’re truly at the end of your rope, all we’ll do is watch.”
“So don’t expect us to help you.”
Running back to them and insisting we were at our limit wouldn’t achieve anything either—the decision to intervene lay entirely with them. I knew that because I’d run to them half crying the moment these five sahagin had shown up, and the only reply I’d gotten was a cold stare. It looked like there was no way out of this except to fight.
But while I was thinking about how a single fatal blow would be the end of me, Niedz and Gahedd looked determined as they drew their weapons.
“Lukas. Let’s do this.”
“This is a good opportunity, if you think about it. If we die, we can share a drink in the afterlife together.”
And as much as I wanted to protest—as much as I was a coward—I wasn’t far gone enough that I’d give up and let my friends fight on their own. Like they had, I drew my weapon and steeled myself for the fight to come.
Once I was focused, it became easy to see what I had to do. When it came to combat, Niedz fought on instinct, while Gahedd was the stalwart rock. In contrast, I was the type who always thought things through, which was why other adventurers had always treated me like a half-wit.
I couldn’t really blame them. I was always slow to act, and it often took me longer than necessary to slay monsters that most adventurers would charge at and finish off in a single strike. I’d long since chalked it up as a bad habit of mine, and I’d tried to fix it time and time again. I really had.
But usually when I’d charged in and left everything to my instincts, I’d just ended up with more injuries, and then that would slow me down anyway. On occasion I’d landed a lucky strike and killed a monster in one hit, but I couldn’t attribute that to anything more than the whims of fortune.
Still, for the longest time, I’d thought that was the right way to fight. I was convinced my outlook needed to change.
Then, the other day, Boss Rentt had said something to me. Well, it had actually sounded more like he was thinking to himself aloud, but I’d still taken the words to heart.
“Hmm. So Lukas is the final anchor point for these three, huh? Niedz charges in, Gahedd adapts to the situation, and Lukas keeps an eye on the overall fight as he considers the enemy’s weak points. Looks like they’ve naturally settled into a pretty solid formation...albeit one that’s still got some glaring holes.”
He’d said all that after we’d had a quick spar to break in the new gear he’d bought us. It had been three against one, and needless to say we hadn’t stood a chance—it had basically been a repeat of our first encounter, with the only difference being that we had attacked him as a trio instead of Niedz charging in first alone. Not that any of that had actually changed the outcome, mind.
Still, it seemed that Boss Rentt had been analyzing our combat roles during the spar. I’d never thought about it in detail before, but once he’d put the idea into my head, I’d realized he was right. That was how we fought.
Well... Kind of, anyway. Most of the time we were probably just flailing about recklessly. It was hard not to, when we were so weak—it always felt like that extra desperation was the only edge we ever had.
But Boss Rentt’s words had made me wonder if we didn’t have that entirely backward. Maybe winning was only hard for us because we were fighting so inefficiently. Maybe if we took the time to think and strategize, we’d be a lot more successful.
It was probably stupid of me to be thinking about this stuff now. Five lesser sahagin were about as strong as ten goblins. In a straight up fight, we’d lose in seconds.
But at the same time, maybe that was exactly why we needed to be deliberate. I hadn’t known Boss Rentt for long, but I figured I understood him well enough to trust that while he might ask for the unreasonable, he wouldn’t ask for the truly impossible.
So maybe, just maybe, there was a way we could beat five lesser sahagin. We just had to find it. For starters, my role was probably...
“Niedz!” I called out.
“Yeah?”
“Do your best to take them out one by one!”
“Right. Got it.”
“Gahedd! Don’t worry about finishing them off! Just keep the others away while Niedz is fighting one-on-one!”
He glanced around. “Good idea. This hallway’s so narrow that it just might work.”
Niedz was our strongest fighter; he wouldn’t lose to just one lesser sahagin. The only problem was that we were facing way more than just one, but if Gahedd and I did our jobs right, we could use the tight confines of the dungeon hallway to ensure Niedz never had to fight more than a single opponent at once.
And if keeping the other sahagin at a distance was all we had to do, I was confident Gahedd and I could manage it. From there, we just had to take them all out one by one. It was still a gamble, since I didn’t know if our stamina would hold out for that long, but—
“Here they come!” Niedz shouted.
We dove into the fight.