I’m not Goblin Slayer Chapter 085

“Bang!”

The bodies of the Fungusmen were scattered all over the ground.

After the team had killed all the adult Fungusmen, the fence behind them retracted again with a series of “clack-clack” sounds.

At the same time, the blanket-like mushroom colonies growing on the six walls suddenly began to wither and die in large patches.

It was as if their life force had been stripped away along with the death of the adult Fungusmen. They shriveled and dried up in a very short time, finally turning into tiny, gray, shrunken fungal mats.

“It’s over!”

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

When the fence had fallen, everyone had felt a little panic, as if they had become trapped prisoners.

Fortunately, after successfully dealing with the Fungusmen, everything returned to normal.

“How come this place feels like a training ground?” Gauss shook his head. This dungeon hadn’t deliberately trapped them; the blockade was lifted after the battle ended.

The purpose was to make them fight the Fungusmen.

“Yes.” Lawrence agreed with Gauss’s point. “Many people say these dungeons are training camps used by the Lost Kingdom to cultivate their own warriors.”

“Kill monsters, pass levels, get spoils, rest, and continue forward.”

“But I’m not sure about the specifics; I just heard others say so.”

Gauss nodded.

Bottom-tier adventurers like them didn’t need to care about too much useless information; they just needed to know that they could gain spoils and hone their skills here.

“Rumble!”

After all the mushrooms had withered, a stone pillar slowly rose from the flat ground in the center of the room with a roaring sound.

In the central groove of the stone pillar were several special small items.

Gauss and the others gathered around.

They found that the stone platform held three amber-colored gel spheres. Inside the spheres, purple mycelial patterns floated, and deeper within, fine, compressed spores, like fish eggs, filled the interior.

“Spore bomb!”

For some reason, the moment they saw the spheres, a voice simultaneously echoed in everyone’s minds.

The few quickly exchanged glances.

They immediately understood the purpose of the three spore bombs as spoils.

When thrown, the high-pressure spores released could generate enormous impact, causing damage to enemies or terrain.

Of course, it was worth noting that the user also needed to maintain distance; they were not intelligent enough to be immune to damage to “friendly” targets.

In short, it was a powerful one-time item.

“Let’s put them away first.” Lawrence gestured for the Rogue Apprentice Edith to act. “Be careful, my small body can’t withstand their explosion.”

“Don’t worry.”

Edith nodded, took out a small cloth bag with padding, and carefully placed the three spore bombs inside.

“Maybe we’ll still need them for our future dungeon explorations.”

“If we don’t use them, we’ll figure out how to convert them into money at the end.”

The others had no objections.

At this moment, Gauss was still immersed in a special feeling.

After collecting the spore bombs just now.

He felt a special change in the surrounding environment and his body—an indescribable, unusual sensation.

A kind of invisible energy in the air slowly permeated into the few spell models imprinted deep within his brain’s will.

He opened his adventurer’s handbook.

Sure enough.

New changes had appeared on it.

“Entered special map, Forgotten Kingdom, miniature dungeon.”

“Skill Mage Armor proficiency + 1.”

“Mage Armor Lv 3 ( 27/50)”

“Skill Magic Missile proficiency + 1.”

“Magic Missile Lv 2 ( 19/20)”

“!!”

Two skills gained 1 point of proficiency.

Was it because they had just cleared this “Fungusman monster room”?

Gauss’s gaze quietly swept across the faces of the others.

He found that they showed no unusual reactions.

So, was this skill proficiency reward only appearing on him? Was it because he had a stat panel that could be solidified? Or was there another reason?

He judged that the others probably hadn’t experienced his situation, although they didn’t have a panel, a divine artifact that could quantify skills.

But he had first noticed something was wrong by his own awareness, because he felt that the few spells imprinted in his will had become more proficient, and only then did he check the panel to confirm.

If the others’ skills had such abrupt improvements, they should have noticed some abnormality, however slight.

Gauss swallowed.

He looked at the dungeon rooms that continued to extend ahead.

Although 1 point of proficiency didn’t seem like much, there were many rooms here.

It seemed that coming to this dungeon was indeed the right choice.

He hadn’t expected to have extra gains during this exploration.

Was this really some ancient civilization’s training ground? But why was he the only one who could improve? Was it really just because of the panel?

If others could also improve their skill proficiency by clearing rooms in the dungeon, they would probably be scrambling to get in.

Gauss’s heart was not calm.

“Let’s rest.”

Hearing his companions calling for a rest.

He tidied up his excited yet somewhat confused mood.

After clearing the mushroom room, everyone was not in a hurry to explore further.

The air had returned to freshness.

The few took off their masks and quickly recovered their strength.

Who knew what awaited them in the next room? Although Edith had explored some of the front half of the dungeon rooms in advance, that was done when the dungeon was not fully activated.

Now the situation inside the dungeon was somewhat different from when she explored it, so they had to quickly adjust their condition to deal with potential dangers.

Gauss gulped down the clear water from his waterskin, looking forward even more to this dungeon journey.

……

A few days later.

“Roar!!”

“Lure them together, my Light spell seems to be able to suppress them.” Gauss shouted to his teammates who were circling with a large group of zombies.

Seeing his teammates run over, Gauss’s bone staff immediately released magical fluctuations.

“Light!”

Brilliant white light was released along the bone staff!

Gauss had realized it now.

His Light spell was not ordinary.

Especially the Light spell enchanted on the bone staff seemed to carry an extremely strong sacred attribute.

Some dark creatures would be restrained by this strong light.

Sure enough, the dozen or so zombies pulled over by his teammates instantly paused in unison under the dazzling illumination of the Light spell, the light in their hollow, sunken eye sockets continuously contracting.

Their cracked lips tore backward, revealing black fangs, and from deep within their throats, a series of extremely painful, hoarse wails squeezed out.

The burning pain made their otherwise swift movements immediately seem a half-beat slower, their joints making clattering sounds like rotting wood breaking as they moved.

“Let’s go!”

The others, who had been worried about being bitten and clawed by zombies and getting infected with viruses, gained courage when they saw the zombies weakened.

“Chop off their heads!”

These dark creatures in the dungeon all possessed a certain degree of regeneration; most could only be completely killed by severing their heads.

“Understood!”

Gauss’s movements were equally swift.

Holding the bone staff in one hand, releasing the effect of the Light spell, he swung his sword with the other, striking the zombies’ rotting, maggot-infested necks, covered in grime and dried blood scabs.

He was indeed very effective against zombies.

Since the bone staff was in his hand, the suppression effect on the zombies around him was also the strongest.

Often, as soon as they got close to him, the zombies would be slowed down by the close-range Light spell’s burning in a short time, and that brief moment was enough for Gauss to cleanly decapitate the zombies.

“Killed Zombie * 1”

“Obtained title [Zombie Hunter]. This title will upgrade with the number of kills.”

“Current effect: Sharpness. In combat against zombies and related advanced species, attack penetration is additionally increased by 10%.”

Gauss quickly scanned the panel, not wasting any time.

He dashed a few steps towards the next zombie.

“Swish!”

The sword light flashed, and this time the strike was even fiercer and more incisive!

The sword light accurately landed on the zombie’s swollen, rotten neck.

The dark green neck tore open with a hiss under his blade, leaving a bowl-sized gash, and turbid blood gushed out.

About a few minutes later.

The last zombie was also killed by the team.

“Boom boom!”

On the stone platform rising in the center of the room, there were several bottles of red and blue potions. Edith, who was already very familiar with the process after days of dungeon exploration, stepped forward and collected them.

After the battle, everyone sat on the ground, panting.

Although they had also left the dungeon to camp and rest on the surface during their exploration these past few days, the continuous dungeon exploration still made everyone feel mentally and physically exhausted.

Every day they opened their eyes, they had to face the dark dungeon space and those foul-smelling monsters.

It had made everyone’s minds completely numb.

“Let’s rest a bit longer. There shouldn’t be many rooms left in this dungeon,” Lawrence said, seeing the fatigue written all over everyone’s faces.

Gauss nodded, found a clean spot on the ground, and sat down to rest.

He also took the opportunity to check his personal panel in the adventurer’s handbook.

The attributes on the panel hadn’t changed, but the proficiency of various skills had changed quite a bit.

Skills:

0-level Cantrip Light Lv 2 ( 5/20)

0-level Cantrip Mage Hand Lv 3 ( 25/50)

1st-level Spell Magic Missile Lv 3 ( 13/50)

1st-level Spell Mage Armor Lv 3 ( 45/50)

Basic Swordsmanship Lv 2 ( 10/20)

Talents: Rapid Digestion, Magic Resistance.

These few days of dungeon exploration had leveled up Light and Basic Swordsmanship to Lv 2.

At the same time, Magic Missile also increased from Lv 2 to Lv 3. After upgrading to Lv 3, Magic Missile unlocked the rapid-fire effect, allowing him to continuously release 2 missiles in a very short time with almost no time interval, and the flight speed of the magic missiles also became faster.

Mage Armor, on the other hand, gained a full 18 points of proficiency, quickly reaching the threshold for his next upgrade.

Thanks to the rapid increase in proficiency, his understanding of the magic power resonance within his body also became very profound.

At this moment, he was very sure that Lv 4 Mage Armor was the key to unlocking his professional advancement path.

Besides these changes.

There was also…

“Monster kills: 178”

Only the last 22 monsters remained until the two-hundred stage goal.

Gauss looked at the map in his mind.

They had already cleared both the left and right routes of the main hall.

The only thing left was the central route.

Judging by the number of rooms in the previous two routes, there didn’t seem to be many rooms left on this central route either.

While he was thinking, Lawrence was reminding everyone.

“Everyone still needs to be extra careful.”

“According to my intelligence, this type of dungeon might have special rooms. Although we haven’t encountered any yet, we must still be vigilant.”

Lawrence held the map hand-drawn by Edith and marked an X on the square representing this room.

His gaze shifted to the passage leading to the next room.