Henry decided to sleep, figuring that an extended rest was exactly what his battered body needed. As he laid down on the cold stone floor near the entrance, he desperately hoped he would wake up to his promised rations.
'I really hope the right side is at least reasonable,' Henry thought, his eyes growing heavy as he replayed the sheer impossibility of fighting twenty fire-mana cobras with his current skill level.
The mental exhaustion caught up with him instantly, and he drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.
He was significantly more tired than he had realized. When he finally opened his eyes, the heavy ache in his muscles had faded.
Sitting neatly just inside the cavern entrance was a woven basket, a large wooden water barrel, and two leather waterskins.
Sir Red had delivered.
Henry sat up, feeling completely refreshed, and pulled the basket closer. Inside were six large, thick sandwiches wrapped in parchment—three packed with sliced turkey, and three loaded with ham and cheese.
Thirsty from the intense dungeon runs, Henry uncorked both waterskins and downed them back-to-back. He then eagerly devoured the three turkey sandwiches, letting the rich protein and carbs refuel his drained stamina.
After giving himself a few minutes to digest, he refilled the two waterskins from the barrel and secured them to his belt.
He drew his arming sword, the steel singing as it cleared the scabbard.
"Alright. I'm ready for the dungeon now," Henry declared to the empty cavern.
Five minutes later.
"Fuck!" Henry shouted as a blinding flash of blue light consumed his vision.
He materialized violently back at the cavern entrance, instantly resetting the dungeon. He had let his mind wander. While executing his opening moves, he had been too busy trying to anticipate what lay down the right-hand path instead of focusing on the present threat.
He had successfully taken out the first line of dagger goblins, but as he pivoted, his boot slipped on a small patch of loose stone. He had the raw speed to recover his balance, but a perfectly timed arrow from the F-Rank archer forced him to abort his evasive maneuver. The four remaining spear goblins immediately swarmed his position, surrounding him and giving the archer a clean, lethal angle.
He had been forced to trigger the system restart.
Frustrated, Henry uncorked one of his waterskins, chugged half of it, and wiped his mouth. Eager for revenge and refusing to break his momentum, he didn't even bother refilling it.
He marched directly back to the thirty-one-foot spawn line. This time, his focus was absolute. He systematically dismantled the goblin vanguard without a single wasted movement and executed the archer with ruthless efficiency.
Stepping over the light of the dissolving bodies, Henry marched straight back to the fork in the cavern. This time, he firmly took the right path.
He stepped cautiously onto the stone, fully expecting another ceiling trap or a hidden pitfall like the one on the left side. But the trap never came.
Henry kept walking in tense silence down the winding corridor until he met a sharp right turn in the passageway.
Taking a deep, steadying breath to prepare himself for whatever nightmare waited on the other side, Henry rounded the corner.
He was met with a single enemy.
Henry looked up, saw a standard white F hovering above the creature's head, and let out a massive sigh of relief. No yellow modifiers. No red glowing venom. Just a single target.
Henry scrutinized his new opponent, and the enemy did exactly the same to him.
It was a goblin, but it stood completely upright and was the exact same size as a full-grown human. It possessed an incredibly dense, heavily muscled physique that completely dwarfed the scrawny cavern goblins he had fought earlier. In its right hand, it gripped a heavy, broad-bladed sword that, while not newly forged, was far from the rusted scrap the other goblins had wielded.
Henry scanned his mind, digging through the fragmented memories of his childhood tutors. The monster's appearance matched an old illustration of a monster.
"A hobgoblin," Henry said out loud. "The next evolution of a goblin."
That was the extent of what he had retained from those lessons, but it was enough.
The moment Henry shifted his weight to attack, the hobgoblin mirrored him. They exploded toward each other, meeting violently in the center of the chamber. Henry's superior speed allowed him to cover more ground, dictating the point of engagement.
Their blades collided with a sharp clash of steel.
The moment the swords crossed, Henry instantly realized his miscalculation. While the standard F-Rank cavern goblins were physically inferior to a human with F-Rank stats, this hobgoblin suffered from no such racial limitations.
Henry pushed forward, attempting to leverage his Lower Regium second attack stance to break the monster's guard. But as it devolved into a pure test of kinetic force, Henry felt himself physically sliding backward. The hobgoblin possessed zero martial technique, but its raw strength stat was definitely higher than Henry's.
Realizing he was completely disadvantaged in a bind, Henry smoothly disengaged, stepping off the center line to relieve the pressure.
The hobgoblin immediately chased him, swinging its heavy sword in wide, unrefined arcs. Henry shifted into a rapid, evasive exchange of strikes and parries. He danced around the heavy blows, his blade flashing out to score a few shallow nicks across the hobgoblin's thick, leathery forearms, but nothing deep enough to be debilitating.
As he ducked under another decapitating swing, the reality of the fight crystallized in his mind.
'It has the Strength advantage,' Henry thought, pivoting to launch a thrust at the monster's ribs. 'But I am faster.'
Henry's thrust darted toward the monster's exposed ribs. Relying on its brute strength, the hobgoblin violently swung its heavy broadsword down to swat the attack away.
But the monster's reaction was a fraction of a second too late.
While the heavy parry managed to knock the brunt of Henry's sword away from its vital organs, it wasn't enough to completely clear the blade. The sword bit a centimeter-deep cut along the side of its stomach.
Dark, thick blood immediately welled up from the gash. The hobgoblin let out a low, guttural roar of pain and raw anger.
Enraged by the wound, the monster abandoned any pretense of defense. It gripped its broadsword with both hands and unleashed a furious, sweeping backhand slash aimed directly at Henry's neck.
But Henry was already moving. Anticipating the wild retaliation, he ducked underneath the heavy, whistling blade, the wind from the massive sword ruffling his hair.
'Speed over strength,' Henry reminded himself, his boots shifting seamlessly across the cavern floor. 'Bleed it out. Don't let it touch you.'