It had been five minutes since the Sentinels arrived, and we had barely managed to make a dent in the guy's stamina. He was a freak of nature with how long he'd been whirling around, blades and limbs flying out at the three of us. The two Sentinels that were helping me had made it several times easier, and with Rivena healing me, I could afford to actually attack every now and then. However, it didn't matter even though we outnumbered him now. I'd told them via thoughts that he could bring any of us down with a single strike, as evidenced by the now unmoving goblin that had been kicked off to the side.

Every time he tried to run away, the Sentinels guarding either hall would lock their shields, and start waving their weapons madly, forcing him back, with support from the archer on either side. We could definitely wear him down with enough time, but we definitely wouldn't have enough to manage that kind of tactic. We couldn't send anyone away however, as we were just barely keeping him here as well.

Thus, we'd sent the only other monster here to find his friends. The sling goblin. I wasn't holding out much hope, since he had lungs, and could get tired if he moved too fast, too much. We were in a bit of a bind, as we also weren't getting any backup either, since all of the other skeletons were too busy making sure that evidence of our scuffle in front of our third floor base wouldn't be discovered. There was apparently a lot of blood where the jackass had died.

So, it was very likely we were on our own, and would either end up all dead, or we'd be unable to kill him fast enough, a group of dungeoneers would arrive, and then we'd all end up dead. Something had to change, and soon.

The Sentinels couldn't do much in the way of counterattacking, as it was all they could do to keep his attention on them. The archers had a very limited supply of arrows, and Rivena couldn't heal forever. At this point, I was actually the most free to do something. Something that naturally, had to be borne of sheer genius, madness, or stupidity. Or of course, some weird combination of the three.

He was currently preoccupied with attempting to break past the guards of the two Sentinels, who seemed much more focused on blocking, or evading his attacks than they were with counterattacking. Seeing his movements, he wasn't especially fast, but it would still be way too much to try and keep up with him. I'd have to do something he either couldn't expect, or couldn't get away from. Sneak attacks weren't doing much of anything so far, and we couldn't pressure him nearly enough.

I ended up standing off to the side, waiting for just the right moment. He easily noticed me moving to prepare an attack, and thus any openings I saw were both few in number, and shorter than a second.

However, I'd been fighting against him for awhile. He'd developed a little bit of a habit while fighting, one that I was somewhat sure I could use to my advantage. Every time he would rush in for a few quick thrusts, he would throw a leg sweep, following up with a reverse grip stab towards any exposed limb. It was the moment after that I was waiting for, just after the stab, where he'd have to solidify his stance once more, and he'd always leap back in order to do so.

Eventually, he did exactly that, and I moved in just before he managed to get both feet on the ground, slamming into him, and wrapping both of my arms around his, interlocking my fingers. "Stab him! Do it now!" I mentally yelled, just as he began slamming his head into mine. I could feel my skull begin to crack and break under the relentless assault. It took only a second, but to me, it felt like hours as my senses slowly started fading, before a sword plunged out his back, sliding in between my ribs. Another one joined the first, before both were ripped right back out, scraping against my bones.

We both fell together, and only then, did I unlock my fingers. I could still hear him breathing faintly, and I was at the point where I couldn't see out of one eye socket, but I wanted the final blow. The experience points were something I desperately needed right now. So naturally, I reached around, and shoved a bony finger straight through his eye and into his brain, and yanked, hard.

He didn't die right away, but after maybe twenty seconds of bleeding out, along with having a skeletal finger through his eye, he finally went limp. The warm feeling never left my bones, and I'm pretty sure it was the only thing keeping me alive at this point, before I got a notification.

Level increased to 6! Hp, Mana, Stamina restored! Injuries fully recovered!

Enemies killed at Level 4:

Novice Adventurer, Experience received; 300.

Strong Adventurer, Experience received; 2000

For a moment I just laid there, staring up at the level notification. My nonexistent heart was pounding at this point, and I almost felt like I was beginning to get tired. The vision for my other eye socket came back after a few moments, and I began to wonder how bone regeneration worked as an undead.

"Let's get his gear back home." I spoke after a moment, as Rivena, her Sentinels, and the archers gathered around. One of the Sentinels immediately bent down, stabbed him in his side again to be sure, and then slung him over their shoulder. It was Rivax again, the same Sentinel who had saved my bony ass earlier.

"Don't do that again, you moron! I just ran out of Mp thanks to you! If we get into another fight, I can't heal anyone!" Rivena scolded me as I slowly got to my feet, and inspected my short sword. The tip of it had actually broken off a bit from trying to stab the other asshole earlier, and was now cracked from overuse. I'd have to get another weapon, but for now, I just took one of the knives. It was most certainly better than nothing.

"Yeah, I'll try not to get myself killed. But for now, it worked. I'd do it again in order to keep us from getting run down by a stray group of dungeoneers." I didn't bother sending anybody to look for the goblin. It was either dead, had abandoned us, or got too tired to have been of any actual use. I personally had no need of those who could get tired. If I could somehow raise more undead, I'd happily use the corpse of the dungeoneer we'd just faced. Having that kind of experience fighting in the dungeon had to be valuable, considering how difficult he was to fight in the end.

Seeing his gear though, I surmised that he was either a pauper, or that he didn't want to leave anything decent to more intelligent monsters. Pretty much all of his gear was regular, aside from his arrows, which had a very faint glow to them. I assumed they were magical in nature, but since I knew very little about how things worked in this world, it could very well have been luminescent metal, and I wouldn't know the difference.

Once we made it back home, Rivena sat back on the bed furthest from the door, and the Sentinels once again positioned themselves around her. The three dungeoneers killed earlier had been stripped of their gear, and were currently shoved inside a nearby treasure chest which had been looted hours ago for what seemed to be goblin based equipment. It wasn't even an improvement for us, so we more or less just tossed it aside.

I took the leather armor from the corpse of the strong dungeoneer, and replaced my old armor. Then, after making sure that most of us had some form of armor, I grabbed the chainmail which had been sitting on a nearby bed. It had several holes in it, to the point that it wasn't very good in terms of being usable. I noted that the man that used us to kill his companions had several holes in him.

Looks like you had fun, didn't you, asshole?

I didn't bother attempting to take the extra chainmail, but I did end up grabbing the other short sword, which apparently, nobody had claimed as the others had noticed mine was already wearing out rather quickly, with how much it was getting used. With it being cracked now, it was next to useless.

We should find a forge at some point. Start making our own weapons and armor. At least then we wouldn't have to worry about our weapons breaking after one or two kills.

I'd have to find another shield later, but the used leather armor definitely worked better than the ragged pieces I was wearing before. Now I might be able to take a blow from a club, maybe a mace, although anything bladed would probably still go through with little issue. I had noticed that while it didn't provide complete protection, it did still have some resistance whenever I stabbed through it. Either the novice dungeoneers didn't get good leather armor, or it just wasn't good against anything bladed to begin with.

Weapons and armor were continuously proving to be problems, but there still wasn't anything that could be done about it until we either killed enough dungeoneers, which might very well make things worse, or until we went down far enough that we could get our hands on something better than rusted junk. It was enough to give me a headache, if I still had the ability to do so.

Without killing enough dungeoneers, we'd be unable to progress, but without good equipment, we'd be unable to kill enough dungeoneers. Thus, we were stuck in what felt like a cycle of bad luck.

I can't get all of us enough experience to get further down, and I can't just try going down myself. I need others with me if I want any chance.

That's when the idea struck me, as if I'd received another headbutt.

I can take down a few of us, and get some basic equipment. It'll be dangerous, naturally, but it's a chance. I just hope whatever's been keeping me alive holds up long enough to manage that psychotic idea. First things first, though. I gotta get better at fighting.

With that, I went right back to sparring, this time fighting against two. I couldn't afford to hold back.