Chapter 82

An enormous two-handed cleaver rocketed down at an armored woman with red hair—and landed true. The mighty blow bisected her down the middle, and the over-sized blade bit into soft dirt, embedding, carving all the way through. Meeting so little resistance, the troll nearly toppled over.

Because it had been other-Natalie, the affectionate name Natalie used for the combat-illusion she’d been practicing. Her illusory armored form parted like mist by the giant blade, and not only had the troll wasted an attack on an enemy created from light and magic, but it found itself overextended and off balance.

Illusions. Even not meeting her potential with them, they were so damn useful. The upgrade from progression one to progression two had made it so much more functional, too.

Natalie didn’t waste the opportunity her spell had opened up. Grunting with exertion, she winded back, then swung her hammer with everything she had—a blow slow and cumbersome enough she never would have tried it without such a clear advantage. The heavy chunk of metal landed into the troll’s knee, and a grotesque crunch filled the air. Its leg bent inward, and it toppled, an imbalance from overextending itself becoming a total failure. It roared, guttural and somehow piercing at the same time.

She stumbled back barely in time to dodge another vicious slash—a desperate attack flung out with surprising speed—and with the eight-foot reach granted by its gigantic weapon, the troll almost reached her despite Natalie having expected the attack.

But with the last ditch retaliatory strike missed, the fight was over.

In slow, methodical fashion, Natalie and her team dispatched the crippled monster. They had been managing the beast even before a broken knee, so now, unable to even stand, the clean-up was a formality. Still, they did so meticulously—a textbook execution. No point in getting sloppy in the final stretch.

Shortly, their team had their first mini-boss kill.

The glass orb that appeared inside the black ribbons pouring from the disintegrating monster was unlike the smaller, mundane ones they had gathered from their dozens of other encounters. Stronger.

Greater Monster Core - Tier 1

Jordan plucked the ball from the ground, holding it up to inspect it.

“Lucky us,” she said.

Natalie nodded in agreement. Higher-tier monster cores were more likely than the one-in-three drop chance from regular monsters, but still not guaranteed. They’d been fortunate with their loot in general, so far. Not to any incredible degree, but on the upper half of what could be expected. Which was good. Nothing soured a dungeon run like consistently coming up dry.

Natalie wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, still heaving in breaths—it had been a tough fight, as expected of a miniboss—then swept a gaze around, checking on the rest of her team.

She’d kept the troll’s attention for most of the fight, but doing so one-hundred percent of the time was hard to manage. Dungeon monsters were more than happy to focus on whoever was getting in their face and making themselves an easy target, but not always. It was inevitable they’d break free from the tank, here and there.

Seeing the enemy charge her backline was probably the most nausea-inducing part of any given fight. It was understood that tanks couldn’t lock down an opponent permanently, but Natalie would still blame herself if anything happened to her teammates. She hadn’t ever expected to fill the tank role, but since that was the fate that had befallen her, she took her responsibilities seriously.

She was pleased to see that everyone was fine. Tired, of course, but fine. While difficult, the fight had been routine, as far as these things went. They’d dispatched the monster without real difficulty. Natalie wasn’t sure if they could have done so even just a few days ago—not to the same level of competence, at least. Even the half-week each of them had been down in the dungeon, practicing each evening, was paying dividends. They were noticeably better than when they’d started. And better at operating as a unit, too. That was almost more important than individual skill.