Terry stood there and tilted his head back. That let the drizzle that had been falling since nearly the moment they entered this godforsaken floor wash some of the blood off his face. The mud goblins, as it turned out, weren't really that much harder to kill than their non-mud cousins. The spider-goats, on the other hand, were just something straight out of a nightmare. Those evil bastards came racing at him on their eight legs, bleeting to wake the damned, all while drooling some kind of acid. Maybe it's for the best that my hat got destroyed at the beginning of all this, thought Terry. It never would have survived this floor.

The gods of vindictiveness would have made sure some of that acid drool landed on his hat. He just knew it. Yet, it made him all the more committed to getting that blacksmith lady to make him a hat from the orichalcum. He didn't know its precise properties, but he was willing to bet it wouldn't be destroyed by some acid drool from spider-goats. No, his future hat would be nigh-indestructible!

"Are you thinking about getting that metal hat again?" asked Kelima in a dry tone.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because you only get that vaguely creepy look of pure joy and evil glee when you're thinking about having an orichalcum hat."

He spun to look at her.

"Just imagine it, though! A hat that no weather can ruin. No monster can claw apart. No panicking noble girl can burn a hole through! It will be glorious!"

"My gods, will you never let that go?" she demanded. "It was just a hat."

"It wasn't 'just a hat.' It was my hat! It was awesome, and you put a hole in it. I expect you'd have had some choice words if I put a hole in your frilly party dress."

"It wasn't frilly! It was sleek and stylish!"

Terry started to answer, but then he tried to remember what she'd actually been wearing. Had it been sleek and stylish? Would he have even known if that was true? It turned out to be a non-starter of a question, because he couldn't picture what she'd been wearing at all. Apparently, he hadn't cared enough to notice then. Nor did he expect he would care enough to notice such things in the future. He barely cared about what he wore. He wouldn't care at all, except that his clothes kept getting ruined by one thing or another. Of course, he had a storage ring now. That meant that he could dump a bunch of clothes in there and not need to worry about it. With no facts to work from, Terry just leaned in.

"You say tomato, I say frilly party dress."

"I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. Tomato? What do tomatoes have to do with anything?"

"Huh," said Terry. "I guess you don't have that saying here."

"What saying?"

"Ask me later. There are some more of those spider-goats coming our way. Oh, and there are three or four of those mud goblins over there," said Terry, gesturing off to their right. "I think you can probably kill them, or at least hold them off until I can get to them. Just don't let them surround you."

Kelima grimaced but nodded. All those source stones she'd absorbed had made it feasible for her to at least hold her own when she wasn't being absolutely mobbed by dungeon monsters. He still wouldn't let her fight a floor boss or the spider-goats. She was not ready for that. But weaker floor minions like the mud goblins were probably about the right level for her. At least they were so far. Terry knew they'd get stronger and stronger the closer they got to the boss room. Even so, there was no reason to deprive her of practice when she could get it.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Terry glared at the spider-goats that emerged from the omnipresent mist and the haze of the drizzle. They were just so damn revolting. Worse, since neither he nor Kelima had uttered the phrase spider-goats, he had to assume that these vile things were a normal part of this dungeon. That just seemed wrong to him. Shaking out his arms a bit, he adjusted his stance and felt god only knew what squelching in his boots. It was probably just water and maybe some mud, but he didn't know for sure. Either way, the feeling was so loathsome that he shuddered a bit.

In so many of the books he'd read and the anime he'd watched, adventurers were always in a hurry to come into these damn places. Now that he was in one, he could only wonder why. While nothing in here was a physical threat to him, it didn't make seeing monsters like these any less difficult psychologically. It probably didn't help that Terry had never held any love for spiders. There were so many kinds back on Earth, and most of them were venomous. He also knew that most of them weren't lethal to humans. Or so the internet claimed.

The problem was that it was next to impossible to know if any particular spider posed a threat to your life unless you were a spider expert. That made Terry pause for a second. He knew that reptile experts were called herpetologists. That meant that spider experts probably had a name. He just couldn't recall ever hearing anyone use it. He wanted to call them spiderologists, but that sounded silly. Their real title was probably some Greek or Latin word that would be super obvious if he heard it. While he pondered that, Terry sidestepped a glob of acid drool that one of the spider-goats spat at him.

"Well, that's a new trick," he said, before reaching down into the water and grabbing a handful of the muck.

He flung the muck at the creatures in an arc. It wasn't nearly as effective as rocks at killing things, but it did a good job of blinding them. Plus, it was still traveling at an absurd speed for mud. It generally stunned the creatures or knocked them back a step. Terry wasn't sure if that would be a useful distraction for normal adventurers. It was plenty for him. By the time the two spider-goats in the lead recovered, their heads were already spinning through the air. That let Terry grab the leg of one of the now headless and thrashing bodies. He threw that at the three monsters that were closing in on him. There was an odd noise that wasn't quite flesh on flesh and wasn't quite chitin breaking. Instead, it lived in some nauseating, aural, uncanny valley between those things.

Terry pushed that thought away and seized a leg of the other headless creature. Using nothing but brute strength, he dragged it along as he launched himself at the remaining creatures. He used the corpse as both a bludgeon and a shield. It turned out that the creatures had good resistance to their own acid. They were less resistant to blunt force trauma. He just beat them to death. It probably would have been faster to kill them with a sword, but he'd decided against it for two important reasons. First, it would have deprived Kelima of useful experience. Second, anything as positively stomach-turning as these monsters deserved to be beaten to death for the sin of existing.

Once he was certain he'd killed the things, he wandered over to where Kelima was still fighting a couple of the mud goblins. He watched for about ten seconds and evaluated what he was seeing. Unless something truly tragic happened, he was certain the noble girl would eventually win. It might take a while, but she was simply faster, stronger, and more skilled than the monsters. She'd wear them down given enough time.

"Do you want to finish them, or do you want a hand?"

"Just kill them," said Kelima. "I want to get off this floor as soon as possible."

"You and me, both," said Terry.

He walked the rest of the way over to them. One of the creatures turned toward him and swung its rusty short sword in his direction. Terry leaned back, and the sword missed him by less than an inch. The goblin was briefly off-balance. Terry took that opportunity to kick it. Kelima and the other goblin watched as it flew high into the air and separated into two pieces. While the goblin was distracted by its flying friend, Terry beheaded it. More blood splattered him. Terry closed his eyes as the stink hit his nostrils.

Gritting his teeth, Terry said, "The next floor better be a goddamn spa. That's all I'm saying."

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