The Legend of the Meta-Defying Smith Who Saved the Kingdom

James stared at the iron door a moment, then shook his head to rouse himself.

That was way too fast, wasn't it?

After a minute's thought, he decided to continue exploring.

He turned his back on the iron door and went back through the tunnel and continued along the wall to the right, when several yards ahead the light fell on a quiescent rat monster, just sitting there idly. At least, until the light fell on it. It whipped its head around, squeaked at James menacingly, and attacked.

James, for his part, relished the opportunity to kill more vermin.

He stepped forward and used his shield to bash the approaching rat in the snout with a muffled crunch, and then before it could recover, smashed it with an overhand strike from his Light War Hammer.

There was a small flash of light on impact, but the weight of the hammer and James' own strength as a level eleven Smith were more than enough to shatter the rat monster's skull and kill it.

Then James continued smashing for another good minute, pulverizing the head and front half of the monster.

He pulled back, certain the monster was dead, and put his back to the wall, listening for any monsters that might have heard them. But the room was silent and dark, and after a minute, it appeared no monsters were coming.

He sliced into the rat monster's foul-smelling carcass and extracted the purplish-green magic crystal and stowed it in his bag and resumed exploring.

Immediately he happened upon another corner, turned, and continued along the wall, passing more veins of Black Iron ore. The wall continued unbroken for quite some time, until James reached another corner and turned and several yards ahead there was another tunnel, this one looking more natural, and wide enough for four men to walk abreast through it.

If James had to guess, he'd say it was directly across from the tunnel to the boss room door.

The Smith carefully scanned around with the [Glow] from his hammer [Reflected] off his shield, checking the ceiling and walls as well as the ground for monsters. Seeing there were none, he crept forward as silently as possible until he reached the end of the tunnel and found another cavern. How large it was, he couldn't tell, due to the unnatural darkness, but once again he turned to the right and followed the wall.

He nearly panicked when he saw a pitch black spider monster come into view on the wall at head height.

Nearly.

He stifled a gasp in his throat and, choking slightly, stepped forward boldly as the spider monster rotated to face him. By the time it had turned its many disgusting eyes in his direction, it was too late.

[Hammer Strike]

[Glow]

There was a small pulse of light that spread from the point of impact, through the spider's central body and out through each disgusting leg in addition to the sheer physical impact of the Smith's Strength-boosted [Hammer Strike].

Splat

There was a nasty wet sound, and the spider monster was dead. He withdrew his hammer from the ruined monster's carcass and it fell away from the wall, legs curling up in death even before it hit the ground. A terrible rotting stench filled the air and James went from choking slightly to outright gagging before he had the sense to hold his breath. With all rapidity, he pulled out a shovel, dug out the monster's Dark Magic Stone, wiped the shovel off in the dirt as best he could, and put everything away, moving onward.

Not the most tactically sound move, but effective. Beyond the spider monster there were no other monsters on either the ground nor the wall, as far as he could see, and several yards on the stench faded to nothing and he could breathe freely.

Rat monsters and spider monsters…

James gulped unconsciously. He really wasn't looking forward to what the boss monster of this floor would be.

The wall continued on for some time before James found a corner, and then turned and continued following the wall for another few yards and he found a small tunnel, perhaps four yards wide. Though it would damage his warding stakes, James decided to put down four and create a safe zone covering both the beginning of the tunnel and an area in front of it. At least he'd be able to retreat if necessary, and nothing could block him in the tunnel. Well, except maybe another kitten monster.

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And the warding stakes were already starting to weaken in the nox essence filled darkness.

James hurried, but slowly and carefully. Deliberately he explored the tunnel, which twisted and turned, but was otherwise a tunnel with no branching paths. At the end, he found the tunnel opened up into a room, and he nearly proceeded inside before he heard it.

The murmurations and susurrations of a multitude of creatures breathing softly.

Ratsign.

Immediately James froze, then as quietly as he could, stepped back and withdrew into the tunnel. He double-checked the ceiling, giving his hammer a test swing to ensure he wouldn't be blocked from making overhand strikes. Then he pulled out eight warding stakes and created a long ward covering a good section of the tunnel until it twisted away again. The leading edge of the ward was a couple yards from the end of the tunnel opening into the rat's nest. Again, James double-checked that the ward was powered, and stepped forward again.

This time he poured magic power into his hammer's [Glow], holding it in front of his shield to [Reflect] the light and spread it further. The semi-circle of light grew on the ground until the edge reached a rat, and then another, and then another rat lying on top of them before he stopped pouring in more magic power.

The three rats woke, and squeaked, and woke the other rats, and James could see a tidal wave of human-sized and larger rats approach.

He retreated into the tunnel, into his ward, and felt his mana start to drain as he kept the ward fully charged, and rats pressed rats against it.

Thus the son of a farmer began his rat extermination.

For all that it took to set up, once set up, it was a remarkably simple process. A full-powered [Hammer Strike] by itself wasn't quite enough to kill one of the rat monsters in a single swing. But with a full powered [Glow] enchantment added to the strike, it was. James hadn't thought the [Glow] enchantment had any offensive capability, but he couldn't argue with the evidence before his eyes.

Each rat monster, once dead, was pushed by its brethren into the ward, whereupon James grabbed it with his good hand and dragged it back, out of the way. Then he would slay the next rat monster, pushed forward like an offering, and repeat the process. This continued for long enough that James' mana dipped below half, due to empowering the ward and his hammer, but eventually there was only one rat left, filling nearly half the tunnel by itself. Wary now, it backed away, and James let himself be lured out of the ward, baiting the lunge.

A quick shield-bash and counter-strike and that was it, the rat monster nest was wiped out.

James wanted to breathe a sigh of relief but was stuck taking shallow breaths. The nest room was nasty, covered in rat oils and droppings. He did a quick circuit of the room, which turned out to be small, and found nothing of interest.

He returned to the tunnel, retrieved his warding stakes – enchantments now damaged, but not irreparably so – and proceeded back to what he presumed was the main cavern area, and retrieved those warding stakes as well. These stakes, unfortunately, left unpowered for so long, had become tainted with nox-essence and the enchantments were totally ruined.

Still, James was confident he could make more if necessary, and he had plenty of spares. He continued onward, to the right, following the wall.

Some fifty yards later, he found another tunnel entrance. He gave it a quick scout of the first dozen or so yards and found it immediately branched off, a winding mess of overlapping tunnels, dead ends, and loops.

Unlike the last tunnel, this time he didn't put down warding stakes. There was simply no way to block off every intersection here as he explored. Instead, he pulled out his red iron plate into which he had etched the map of the fourth floor labyrinth, and flipped it over to start a new map.

The tunnel, blessedly, was free of monsters as he explored. It was merely confusing, and while James was no Scout, he was a level eleven Enchanter with a class boost to Intelligence.

He could make a map.

For about half a day James mapped out these tunnels, measuring the time by how hungry he was getting. At one point he found a dead end tunnel with three fat veins of Black Iron and couldn't resist. He put down some wards and spent an hour or two mining them out, giving himself a nice stockpile of Black Iron Ore.

It was around when the hunger had passed and his armor was growing heavy, and his hammer and shield were weighing down his arms, that James reached an end to the tunnels. There was a straight tunnel ahead, and the nox essence was growing thinner and the light from his hammer was reaching farther.

He stopped a moment and checked his map. As it turned out, despite the tangled mess, it was all just loops and dead ends. There was only the two exits. If he just didn't get turned around or follow a loop in circles for hours, he could eventually make it out.

Still, having a map certainly helped.

James put the map away and walked down the tunnel, guard up, shield raised, hammer at the ready. The nox essence decreased and the light from his hammer reached farther and there, twenty yards ahead, he could see the foot of a staircase leading up.

Up.

James decided now was time to take a break and eat and think. He pulled out some of his prized crab meat and ate it, trying not to think of how little there was left. At least he still had the serpent meat in reserve.

The entire floor so far had been confusing. He certainly hadn't fully explored it, but it seemed significantly larger than the fifth floor had been, and maybe even larger than the fourth floor. Then, there was how close the staircase down had been to the iron door leading to the boss room. It was quite literally a stone's throw away, with effectively nothing between them but a few rats.

And now this: another staircase, much further away. And unless the geometry of the floor was just weird and unbalanced, James had explored half of it at most. There was likely plenty more to the floor.

While he digested, James sketched out a crude diagram of the floor layout, simplifying the mess of tunnels he had just passed through. As he thought, there were still large portions he hadn't explored of the caverns he'd already been in, and no sign those were the only caverns.

He just didn't know what to make of it.

But thinking wasn't going to get him anywhere.

He got to his feet and cautiously began ascending the staircase.

On and on he climbed, and the light grew brighter. Brighter. Almost blindingly so.

Eventually his [Shadow Concealment] failed, and the light was indeed blinding. James stopped, pulled out his [Blind] helmet, and put it on, now able to see again.

The top of the staircase was just ahead.

He slowed down, crept forward, and peered down the tunnel.