The third floor boss doors stood open. If the previous pattern were to be repeated there should be a level five boss and pair of level four mobs, but on stepping in I saw far more than three enemies. Enough that I didn't even want to waste the mana appraising them all. At the front was a level five goblin lieutenant, my height and with a heavier build than any previous goblin. He wore scrap armour like the fighters, but with a better construction that did a far better impression of plate mail. He held what would be a long sword for humans, but to the goblin was a heavy two hander. He was accompanied by ten much smaller unarmed goblins and five more with stones. Appraising a couple showed them as level two lesser goblins, so it was probably a safe assumption that the rest were the same. The room itself was identical to the first two boss chambers. Once again, doors and pillars were adorned with incomprehensible scribbles. Maybe it was what passed as art for goblins?

"So far you haven't fought groups of more than four at once. Now we have four times that. Given the makeup of our party, how would you suggest we proceed?"

Any number of ways. Freya could vaporise them all with a wave of her hand. Robin could probably snipe the lot of them before they managed to get close. Noah could turn invisible and slit their throats before they even figured out what was happening. Even Jared, the weakest fighter here, could probably melee them to death if he was careful. Xander could probably just walk into the middle of them and utterly ignore their attempts to hurt him. Nonetheless, I doubted those were the answers Xander wanted.

"Make it a ranged battle. The mobs can't throw stones hard or far, and the lieutenant has no ranged weapon. If we snipe them from here, starting with the lieutenant, then the ranged mobs, by the time they reach the front liners we'll just have a bunch of unarmed weaklings to deal with. Or Freya could just wave a hand and vaporise the whole lot of them in one go. Either way works."

Xander nodded. "Not a bad suggestion, but that only works because they're so low level. Higher level opponents would have ranged weapons that could cover the whole room. If it were an orc chieftain with fifteen orc warriors behind him, five with crossbows, how would you suggest we proceed then?"

Well, I knew that one. That was easy. "I wouldn't be here in the first place."

"Correct answer, although from your tone I'm not entirely convinced you're taking this seriously. If you're heavily outnumbered in a space like this with no cover, and you don't have a decisive strength advantage over the other side, do not engage. In this case, we do have a decisive strength advantage. So next question, if you were engaging on your own, what would you do?"

"From the name 'goblin lieutenant', would I be correct in assuming he has buff effects on his subordinates, or can at least organise them into some coherent strategy?"

"Yes, his presence increases their general abilities, especially their intelligence."

"Then [Far Step] to the lieutenant, use [Strength] to one shot him, use [Dexterity] and [Far Step] to take out the ranged support while dodging, then clean up the other mobs normally."

"Very well. Do it."

I blinked with surprise. Okay, apparently for this one I'm solo again. Can't say I was expecting that. Neither were Noah or Jared, judging from their surprised faces. Freya was grinning, looking forward to watching the spectacle. Very well, time to get serious.

I took the unusual step of removing my pack and leaving it behind for maximum manoeuvrability before charging in. Just before hitting the edge of the arena, I activated all three of my rank two buffs and used [Far Step] to reach the lieutenant. He reacted quickly, but his weapon was too unwieldy to bring to bear in time to parry my strike. The blow sent him sailing across the room, but an [Appraisal] confirmed he wasn't yet dead. The mobs were attempting to swarm me, but I used [Far Step] again to chase after the lieutenant before they could encircle me, striking again with an overhead swing where he landed on the ground.

The damn lieutenant rolled, dodging my strike, and before I could make another attempt a barrage of stones struck me from behind. Between my armour and boosted endurance, they only did a few points of damage, but I needed to end the lieutenant quickly. The charging unarmed mobs blocked the line of fire of their stone throwing teammates for a second, giving me a chance to launch another attack. The lieutenant hadn't managed to get back to his feet, but seeing my incoming blow, he attempted another roll. This time I expected it, and used a short distance [Far Reach] to compensate, smashing his head face first into the ground. This time the blow was fatal.

I used [Far Step] again to step behind the line of charging mobs, smashing the stone throwers one by one. The response of the others was noticeably less fluid and synchronised this time, but eventually they did all turn and chase me again. By the time they reached me, the stone throwers were dead, and their unarmed teammates followed them shortly after.

ding

Dexterity increased by 1

Skill [Strength] increased to level 4

The chest this time contained a whole large copper. I added it in to my I'd-like-to-eat-tonight fund, and walked back to the group where Noah was looking cross. Was that at me for some reason?

"What was that for? That was too much for him to fight safely."

"That was the intention. Peter made his choice already when he stepped into the dungeon today. I intend to respect that."

"What do you mean by that?"

I'd never seen any member of Xander's party openly protest one of his decisions before, although I'd admittedly not been with them long. Xander had obviously picked up enough information to come to the same conclusion that I had reached last night; that there would be no purpose to me entering the dungeon and playing safe.

"Entering the dungeon and acting like a regular delver was supposed to stave off future interference by whatever is messing about with Peter's life. That plan didn't work. Peter was left with two choices, to attempt to clear the quest or to give up. Giving up would mean losing his unique trait, the cause of the unnatural interference, so the original purpose of entering the dungeon would be lost. Completing the quest will require far swifter progress than any of us have ever made as traditional delvers, who always put safety first. After all, you still haven't completed a rank two class despite starting it five years ago. We need Peter to complete his in little more than two years."

Noah sighed, defeated. "I disagree. A trait, even a high rank one, isn't worth risking your life over in my opinion. But if you, Peter and the guild master all agree on this, there's not going to be anything I can do to change your mind. Let's keep moving."

"Yes, let's. I'm not saying there's no point to learning normal delving protocol; Peter should at least be making an informed choice when he decides to break it. We'll continue teamwork exercises on the next floor."

On the next floor, the regular grunts were a stronger version of the second floor boss. Level four goblin scouts replaced the level three lesser version, and the groups grew as large as five goblins to a room. There were also two other parties active on this floor, and rooms near the entrance had been cleared before we arrived. Again we had to rely on Noah leading us to the populated sections. This time we stepped up to two other party members fighting together with me at once, giving me one more teammate to try and keep track of.

It wasn't just teamwork practice any more either; on this floor, I needed them. The step up from the third floor to the fourth was significant, and I wouldn't have wanted to take a group of four or five on my own without magic. This time I wasn't just keeping track of my team, but learning where I could ignore a threat safe in the knowledge that someone else would handle it. More than once I got it wrong and ended up with an arrow impacting me. They couldn't pierce my armour, but my health still dropped by a point or two and unlike the rain of stones from earlier it hurt.

Pain wasn't something I'd dealt with in the middle of a fight so far. The only opponent who had actually injured me significantly was the orc, and on that occasion I'd been far too full of adrenaline to even notice that my ribs were smashed. When making my choices, 'pain' wasn't something I'd considered at all. In retrospect, that was stupid of me. If I wasn't going to play safe, even if I survived, that didn't automatically mean I would be uninjured. Could I still bring myself to hunt in the dungeon every day knowing I would get bruised and battered, if not worse? How would I cope without Jared and his [Heal]? Health potions were far too expensive to be chugging one every battle. Perhaps this was another of Xander's lessons, although if it was, I had no idea what the answer was supposed to be.

Our adventure on the fourth floor was curtailed not by time but because we ran out of things to hunt; between ourselves and the other two teams, the whole floor had been cleared. With my new [Dismantling] skill we were actually moving quite a lot faster than we had been the day before, when the core extraction took longer than the actual fights. We still weren't collecting anything other than the cores, the scrap armour and metal weapons being only low quality iron and not worth recovering. All three groups must have arrived at the boss room at more or less the same time, because the doors were closed and another party was settling in outside. They looked over as we arrived, noting my presence with surprise.

"Well well, if it isn't Xander. I'd heard you'd been demoted back here to do babysitting duty, but are you sure you should be bringing the runt in this deep?"

How rude, but I noted the 'back here' with interest. Hadn't they always been here?

ding

Skill [Privacy] advanced to level 7

That hadn't happened in a while. Looking over the rest of the team, I saw someone who [Appraisal] identified as a mid-levelled [Scout] looking at me in confusion. I gave her a wink, and she immediately looked away.

"Not going to respond?"

"Drop it, boss. The kid is a rank two mage, and my [Analysis] doesn't work on him at all. Whatever is going on there isn't babysitting, if the guild gave him a magical item to block high rank appraisal skills."

Oh? She thinks I'm hiding my status with a magical item? Given the state of this world, [Privacy] is probably a rarely taken skill, so it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't anyone's first guess. Their ill-mannered party leader spat at the ground and turned away without saying anything more, and five minutes later the doors swung open. I was surprised Xander hadn't spoken at all during in that altercation, so once the doors were safely closed behind them I asked about it.

"Did you know them?"

"I know their leader. I saved his life once, when he first reached rank two and grew too arrogant. He's always resented me for it; he's still under the impression he would have won if I hadn't interfered."

Another five minutes later the doors opened once more, and it was our turn to fight. The room was the same as ever, and this time the enemy was a group of five level five goblin champions. They were each my height, with the same dense scrap metal armour as the previous floor's lieutenant. One held a long sword in two hands, one a short sword and shield, one a whip, and the remaining two had bows. I also saw they each had a long knife at their waist. This was a significant step up in weaponry; not only did the ranged fighters have backup melee weapons, but there was the mid-ranged whip to worry about.

"This time the enemy is a balanced party, aside from their lack of magic support. They will work together, fighting as a single cohesive unit. It's your opportunity to watch effective teamwork from the other side. Go."