Blacksmith vs. the System

I watched silently as the group shuffled about. "How should we split?" one of them asked.

"Call me leader, you arrogant swine," the leader responded, which gave me a clue about the state of their group. They had not been together for a long time. "Just for that, you have to go and find him alone."

"You can't be serious. You think you're my owner just because you got hired a day before us?"

"I'm the only one that has an Epic skill," the leader declared smugly. "Do you want to come and test it?"

I listened to them carefully, trying to understand what was going on. They were an interesting choice for a group of hired muscle sent for an assassination mission where someone level seventy had failed before. Though, maybe they had — rightfully — assumed that the steward had only died because of his carelessness, and a team of thugs would be able to kill me based on sheer numerical advantage.

But, if it was the case, they were clearly not briefed fully.

I wished that I was wearing the silver alloy set I had forged for myself. I left them below to keep under the radar, but it was clearly a mistake. I would have been feeling far more confident if I were wearing weapons that would hold against them.

Ultimately, as long as they split, and I can ambush the remaining ones, I would be able to deal with them soon enough.

"Leader, maybe we shouldn't be taking it lightly. I don't think he'll be happy if we fail. It would be bad if he blames you for this moron's idiocy," one of the others intervened, showing common sense to deflate the tension.

I respected that attitude. Too bad it marked him as a priority target. The last thing I needed was someone calm and calculating to help.

"Alright, he can take the two idiots here," he said. "Since they failed their only task, they can redeem themselves. He will be slowed down by the monsters, so you can catch up easily."

They argued a little more, but I wasn't able to hear all of it, busy slowly retreating. I kept the camouflage up until I was safely in the mist, and after that, I shifted my location, using Fleeting Step to look for a nice ambush location, merely two hundred yards away from the dungeon gate. I knew the general direction they would be taking, and finding them would be easy.

I just needed to follow the sound of fighting.

Still, I was happy that I cleaned the immediate surroundings, or, even with Fleeting Step, I couldn't have avoided the monsters without making too much noise.

Once I found a nice ambush spot, I activated the camouflage ring once more, waiting for them to pass under me, shuffling slightly to make sure I would be merely a few yards away from them when I was forced to drop the camouflage field.

To make my job even easier, they were arguing as they ran, not paying enough attention to their surroundings.

I waited until they passed me and then attacked, targeting the one with the Rare skill first. To his credit, he managed to react to my assault in time, far faster than I had expected. His Dexterity score must have been amazing.

Unfortunately, he tried to parry my hammer strike with his sword.

[-50 Vitality]

My full-powered attack taught him the disadvantages of doing so immediately. His sword didn't break, but merely deflected. He tried to throw himself to the side, but it was too late. It might have been different if he was wearing armor that matched his sword in quality … but he did not.

The other two weren't even able to react. Technically, a hammer was considerably slower than a sword in combat, but that was only true when comparing the skills of equal rank and proficiency. They died just as easily.

"Hey, morons, what's going on?" the leader shouted. I frowned, unhappy that they had caught on to the fact that something was wrong. A mistake on my part, but I didn't have the time to regret it.

"A monster swarm. We're surrounded, and the idiots are already dead," I shouted back, hoping that the panic would cover up the fact that I didn't sound the same. At the same time, I grabbed one of the bodies and dragged it away.

It was a hasty plan, but not a terrible one. It was clear that they had been gathered together recently, and their hiring was obviously a hasty job, meaning that they weren't used to their tactical acumen.

I took the sword, his cloak, and his pouches away, but touched nothing else. I threw the body to the nearest monster that was in a relatively concealed spot, and retreated more, gathering and agitating monsters near a hundred-yard radius, but killed none, deliberately turning them into a swarm.

Then, I once again ditched them by climbing up a steep cliff using the Fleeting Step. Once again, I activated the ring, watching them from high up.

"I can't believe you broke another vial. You're a disgrace," the leader shouted. "I'll make sure to deal with you."

I had no idea what that vial was other than what I could derive from the context. I pulled open the pouches and found one bottle that was glowing with energy. I didn't know how it worked, but a quick tap on the glass confirmed that it was breakable.

I threw it to a distance, right at the edge of my field of vision. A small flash of mana spread, and then I was hit by a subtle smell. Just like that, the monsters started gathering wildly. My eyes widened, wondering what would have happened if I used that on the fourth floor.

Maybe it would have gathered enough monsters to give me an Epic skill. However, at that moment, I was more than happy with wasting it. One against five, each with Rare skills with the exception of their leader, who had an Epic skill, was not a favorable confrontation.

I would take any advantage I could. The monsters rushed toward them, accompanied by the sound of fighting. Some of the monsters started to attack me despite my concealment.

"That's a problem," I said as I started running, ditching them. However, the smell of the potion they had used to trigger the swarm was still enough to make them chase more than they were used to.

Once again, I circled their approximate location, and once again prepared to attack them from behind. Ultimately, it was my best chance.

When I found them, they were already dealing with the monster wave, careless enough to spread so that they could deal with the monsters more smoothly. Currently, only two of them were visible due to mist. A mistake, one that I could truly leverage thanks to my newly discovered trick of enhancing Fleeting Step with Health.

As much as I wanted to, slowly getting close to them under concealment was not an option, as it wasn't effective against the monsters.

Instead, I moved forward as smoothly as possible, using my newly acquired sword against the monsters to avoid making loud sounds. Though, it was certainly a smooth experience, both the quality of the sword and the enchantment made the task even easier.

Notably, even with its apparent quality, it still degraded as I killed the beasts. It was considerably slower, but it still did.

"Finally, you're here," one of them began talking as he caught me from the corner of his eye while I approached even closer, the cloak and the sword enough to disguise myself as my past victim. I walked closer, keeping the cloak tight around me.

Before I could kill the two, I entered the field of view of the third one. It was the one that I identified as the smart one. "He's an imposter!" he shouted. The speed he noticed despite everything suggested he had perception.

A big problem. Luckily, without proper armor, they couldn't just ignore the monsters and regroup. I caught up with the first one before they could. With our weapons equal, the proficiency difference proved deadly.

Before the others could arrive, I had already decapitated him. "Quick, gather together," the calm one shouted, recognizing the threat. It was too late. I switched to my hammer even as I used the enhanced version of the Fleeting Step for the first time.

Covering twenty yards in an instant, making a loud noise in the process.

[-7 Health]

"He's not a warrior, but some kind of rogue!" he shouted.

It was interesting. Not the part that he assumed I was a rogue, as he clearly misread the Fleeting Step. The interesting part was that he assumed that I was a warrior, and not a blacksmith. But, the implications of that, I could think about later.

He tried to defend himself, but he wasn't ready for me to switch to a Hammer. And he was certainly not ready for a full blow.

[-50 Vitality]

Lack of information was always deadly. Health was useful against monsters, but against people, it wasn't as effective unless it was paired with a strong set of armor to protect the vitals. Health wasn't enough to recover from a body shattered into minced meat.

While the leader, with his Epic skill, was the biggest threat, I hunted the remaining three first, their unfamiliarity with the insect monsters making it a smooth achievement. The way they fought against in the midst of the insect swarm belied their unfamiliarity.

"You think you can fight against me? I own an Epic skill. I'm untouchable," the leader shouted as I attacked him.

"Good point," I shouted back even as I moved back, looted the four fallen ones out of their weapons and pouches, and retreated with a loud fanfare, using Health-Enhanced fleeting speed quickly several times.

At this point, the swarm had grown big enough to exhaust him. I retreated back to the gate, listening to him fight even as I forged myself an iron spear, using the benefits of my advanced Forging to my benefit. It was a thick piece of bulky garbage, but it didn't look like it. It looked like something a king would use during a parade.

One with a nasty surprise hidden inside.

I worked on it until the sound from the insect swarm started to lessen, then, I rushed forward. "You again," he growled, but his eyes widened as he saw my 'amazing' spear, glowing blue. "A magic spear!" he gasped in fear.

So, when I threw it against him, he treated it as a deadly plague. That was the other problem with skills. While they gave perfect combat advice, that advice relied on the perception of the user.

A deep, crackling wave of vitality energy gathered around the sword as he countered the spear, which shattered into pieces. It wasn't a deadly explosion, nothing more than thin metal shards.

It was enough to make him close his eyes in panic. I closed the distance with another burst, one last hammer blow enough to bring the fight to an end.

I pulled his body from the middle of the swarm in case I needed the evidence, and I continued to kill the monsters.

I needed to come up with a convincing story.

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