Free Web NovelChapter 39: Farming Some Monsters
Lightning chained between the impaled servants, jumping from one to the other through the conductive metal of the blades.
[Critical Hit! -1,100 Damage!]
[Critical Hit! -1,050 Damage!]
[You’ve slain: Stone Servant (Level 22) x2. +880 Experience]
Five servants left. And the golem was finally moving.
It crossed the cavern with surprising speed for something so massive, each step shaking the ground hard enough to send loose stones bouncing. Its fist came down like a falling mountain, aimed at the spot where Nacho had been standing half a second earlier.
He rolled to the side, feeling the impact through the soles of his feet. The crater left behind was three feet deep.
Okay. Note to self. Don’t get hit by that.
The remaining servants had spread out, trying to surround him while the golem kept him off-balance. Smart tactics for supposedly mindless constructs. Maybe they had a hive mind. Maybe the golem was controlling them.
Either way, he needed to thin the numbers before he could focus on the boss.
Nacho reached into his inventory and pulled out every Silverion Dagger he had, ten blades total, letting them hover in the air around him like a crown of silver thorns.
"Dagger Duchess, don’t let me down."
He threw all ten at once.
[-5,000 MP | 1,190 / 6,190]
The daggers split in mid-air, each one curving toward a different target with the unnatural precision of homing missiles. Five hit servants, driving through stone armor and detonating with stored kinetic energy. Three missed their marks as the targets dodged, but curved around for another pass. Two buried themselves in the golem’s chest, barely penetrating the thick granite hide.
[You’ve slain: Stone Servant (Level 22) x3. +1,320 Experience]
[Greater Stone Golem: -180 Damage | 4,820 / 5,000 HP]
Two servants left. And his mana was dropping fast from maintaining the homing effect on the returning daggers.
Nacho made a decision.
He canceled the homing effect and let the daggers fall, then charged directly at the golem. His tentacle, still invisible, extended ahead of him like a spear aimed at the creature’s glowing eye.
The golem saw him coming. Its fist rose, began to descend.
Combat Precognition showed Nacho exactly where the blow would land. He adjusted his trajectory by three inches, letting the boulder-sized fist graze past his shoulder close enough to tear his shirt but not touch his skin.
His tentacle hit the golem’s eye at full speed.
The amber gem shattered.
The golem screamed, a sound like tearing metal that echoed through the cavern. It staggered backward, clawing at its ruined face, giving Nacho the opening he needed.
He climbed. freewebnσvel.cøm
Using his tentacle as an anchor point, he hauled himself up the golem’s chest, finding handholds in the gaps between stone plates. The creature thrashed and swung at him, but he was too close for it to reach, clinging to its torso like a barnacle on a ship’s hull.
The remaining two servants rushed toward them, but they were too slow. They’d never reach him in time.
Nacho found the crack in the golem’s chest where his daggers had penetrated and shoved his arm inside up to the elbow.
There.
A core. Hot and pulsing with magical energy. Exactly what he was looking for.
He wrapped his fingers around it and pulled.
The golem’s scream rose to a pitch that should have shattered glass if there had been any glass to shatter. Its movements became frantic, uncoordinated. The light faded from its remaining eye.
And then it fell.
Nacho rode the body down, leaping clear at the last second as three tons of stone crashed into the cavern floor. The impact threw up a cloud of dust that obscured everything for several seconds.
When it cleared, the two remaining servants were standing motionless, their animating force gone along with the golem’s core.
[You’ve slain: Greater Stone Golem (Level 28). +5,600 Experience]
[You’ve slain: Stone Servant (Level 22) x2. +880 Experience]
[Level Up! Level 22 → Level 24]
[+10 Free Stat Points]
[Ding!]
[You’ve cleared the dungeon: Stone Hollow (Level 30)]
[You’ve obtained a reward: +5 Free Stat Points]
[You’ve obtained a reward: Stone Heart (Rare) x1]
Nacho stood in the settling dust, breathing hard, covered in stone fragments and his own sweat.
In his hand, the golem’s core pulsed with a warm golden light.
That’s one down. Now where are those smugglers?
The dungeon’s exit gate glowed green at the far end of the cavern, but Nacho didn’t move toward it yet. He crouched beside the golem’s shattered remains and started picking through the rubble, his fingers closing around the monster cores embedded in each fallen servant.
Eight cores from the minions. One massive core from the boss. The golden light pulsing in his palm was warm enough to feel through his skin.
[Monster Core (Common) x8 obtained]
[Monster Core (Rare) x1 obtained]
He tucked them into his inventory and stood, rolling his shoulders to work out the tension that had built up during the fight. His MP was sitting at just over a thousand, which meant he’d burned through most of his reserves on those homing daggers.
Worth it though. That was actually fun.
The green gate beckoned, but something nagged at him. The Rat King’s contact had mentioned smugglers using this dungeon. If they’d been farming it for months, where were they? The cavern showed no signs of recent human activity beyond his own destruction.
He activated Apex Senses and swept the chamber, picking up traces of old footprints in the dust near the walls. Someone had been walking a path that avoided the center of the room entirely, hugging the shadows where the golem’s patrol pattern wouldn’t reach.
So they weren’t fighting the boss. They were sneaking past it.
He followed the footprints to a section of wall that looked no different from any other. His tentacle probed the surface, finding a hairline crack that ran from floor to ceiling.
A hidden passage.
He pressed against it, and the stone swung inward on silent hinges, revealing a narrow corridor lit by dim crystals embedded in the walls. The air here smelled different. Sweat and smoke and something metallic.
Bingo.
