16 The Ruined Fortress of Roha Vala, Part Two

As she finished healing, laid out on the ground, she was confronted with a couple of unfortunate facts.

Firstly, there were two enemies. If there had been just one, maybe Neve would have tried to fight it. After all, she was going to have to fight the boss of this place at some point, who was surely over level 50. If she couldn't beat a random grunt, then there was nothing to feel bad about in dying to it because it meant she would have just died to the boss anyway.

But, no, there were two enemies walking around that table, which severely complicated the situation.

The second fact was related to why she was still alive. The only reason the mannequins hadn't detected her yet was that she hadn't moved an inch.

That meant that the instant she moved out of this position, she was probably screwed.

As the reality of this situation hit her, Neve tried her hardest to remain calm. Taking steady breaths, she stared up at the ceiling.

[Panicking won't do me any good. How many clips have I seen on MeTube of players dying in dungeons because their fears got the better of them? Countless. If I try to keep a calm mind, I might be able to think of something.]

Inhaling slowly, she felt her heartbeats becoming slower.

[Okay... What do I do?]

The first option that came to her mind, getting up and trying to run away, was not very inspiring. Even if she wasn't cut down the instant that she tried to stand, she had no idea where to go. And, even if she did know that there was a very high likelihood that there would be enemies in that direction as well.

The second option, fighting both of these things upfront, also did not feel like it would lead to any outcome that kept her head on her shoulders. Fighting one of them, while still frightening, was reasonable, at least. Fighting two of them felt like suicide.

[So, do I just stay here and pray that they just go back to being frozen or something?]

Letting out a slow, quiet breath, an idea popped up in her mind.

[... Wait,] she thought, blinking. [I guess that could work. This trap, would it work against them?]

There was one problem that was immediately apparent, however.

[If that trap wasn't even strong enough to kill me in one shot, will it be enough to kill them?]

Unfortunately, Neve's options were so limited that it appeared as though she would have to take the risk. As she lay there nothing else came to her mind.

[I'm really lacking options here. I think I'll have to try it.]

And so, deciding that she was going through with this, she began planning this out, step-by-step.

[I get up, they're probably spotting me instantly because my sneaking skill is so low, I run to the trap, try to avoid the tile I walked over, and hope that they roll over it, maybe? But, what if they avoid it somehow? Wouldn't I just end up in the same situation of running away aimlessly that I'm trying to avoid?]

Contemplating each individual outcome was enough to make Neve's head hurt, but out of all the different variables at play, the fact that she had to try this remained the one constant in the equation.

[... I just have to do it,] Neve thought, breathing out and trying to push her nerves out of her body. [I have to. So...]

Neve balled her hands up into fists, squeezing her skirt.

Gritting her teeth, before she could convince herself not to, Neve pushed herself up to her feet.

Instantly, the mannequins spotted her.

[Crap, crap, crap, crap!]

They began jogging in her direction, their weapons held high. They were surprisingly slow, but that only meant they were probably very strong, with all of their attribute points being placed into some combination of Strength, Precision, and Endurance.

Neve ran up the ramp in front of her, pausing just before she reached the top to look down at the floor.

There was no obvious indicator of how big the tile that triggered the trap was. It looked as though she'd never walked on it, to begin with.

[I guess I should- AGH!?]

An arrow went right past her head.

[What? What the fuck?]

Turning to the left, she realized that she'd been wrong.

It wasn't two enemies, it was three. One of the mannequins, an archer, had simply been standing still, not needing to move at all due to the fact that it was carrying a ranged weapon.

It had aimed ahead of her, as archers tended to do since it was better to aim where your target was going to be rather than where they were.

If Neve hadn't paused to look down at the trap, there would be an arrow in her head right now.

[Fuck!]

In a panic, Neve jumped to the left, hopping over the tile entirely.

As she landed on the ground, she braced herself for any gunfire that may have caught her if she had walked onto another trap. Thankfully, nothing happened.

[I avoided it!] Before she could even take a second to celebrate, she heard the mannequins approaching.

They rolled up the steps at what could almost be described as a leisurely pace. The archer mannequin remained on the first floor where it fired off arrows but was unable to land any, as Neve stayed crouched behind the wooden railing.

The first mannequin stepped on the tile and Neve saw the trap trigger.

[Come on...]

It fired off a round at the enemy and the mannequin was struck in its chest, falling backward. Its stone-like body cracked. It wasn't dead, as its twitching indicated, but it was injured.

[IT WORKED! YES!!!]

The second mannequin, however, the one holding an ax that was almost bigger than Neve herself, avoided the tile that its ally had just walked over.

[Shit.]

In the few seconds she had before the mannequin reached her, Neve had to make a choice.

There was a hallway right next to her. She could run down that route and hope that she wouldn't find any other enemies.

Or, she could remain in this room and try to get that second mannequin killed somehow, someway.

[I...] Neve gritted her teeth. [I can't just run down the hall. I don't know what I'll run into. I'm fucking terrified. It's literally all I want to do, to run, but it's not safe. I can't.]

Going against every instinct in her body telling her to keep sprinting away from the mannequin holding the huge ax, Neve turned toward it.

[I guess I just have to start dodging!]

The mannequin reached her.

Neve swallowed as it raised its weapon up. Arrows from the archer below continued to bounce off the wall behind Neve, as the mannequin waited for her to raise her head just a little too high.

The mannequin brought its weapon down and Neve sidestepped the attack, maintaining her crouched position.

Not once had she regretted not putting many points into her physical attribute in the past, but now she was wishing she'd at least reached 15 Speed.

The mannequin pulled its ax back once more. It was slow, but at the same time, it didn't seem like it was particularly struggling to lift that monstrous weapon.

Keeping her posture low to avoid the archer's arrows, Neve waited. The ax mannequin went for a horizontal swing, this time. Neve's eyes widened and she jumped back, trying to avoid the sweeping strike.

The mannequin did not stop there like it had last time, though. It moved straight into a crushing overhead blow, aimed at Neve's head.

The healer rolled out of the way and the ax briefly embedded itself in the ground where she'd just been, leaving a web of cracks behind.

She'd only dodged a few moves and Neve was already tired. A mage's stamina was often not the best, after all.

[I can't just keep doing this. I have to kill this thing, but...!]

The trap.

[One way or another, I *need* the mannequin to step on that tile!]

With that idea going through her head, she got up and moved back a little, toward it.

"Come on, come on, asshole!" She muttered spitefully as she took a few steps away from the mannequin. It swung at her two more times. Both times, Neve dodged by moving out of the weapon's range.

She got closer, and closer to the trap. But, she'd forgotten one crucial detail.

The first mannequin had only been injured. It hadn't died.

She saw what happened next out of the corner of her right eye.

A swing of its longsword was about to catch her right thigh. She only managed to avoid it out of luck, as she stopped moving back and the sword's tip went past her.

But, now, she was cornered, stuck between two opponents, and that archer was still firing off arrows at her.

Neve moved forward, avoiding another slash from behind, and then stepped to the side, dodging a vertical swing from the ax mannequin in front of her.

This was too much to deal with.

However, her mind continued to whisper something in her ears.

[The trap, the trap, the trap. Don't give up on the plan. It's the best idea you've got.]

She tried the following:

Moving around the ax-mannequin, toward the hall, she attempted to position herself in such a way that the two mannequins would be standing side by side as they attacked her.

It was an easy thing to achieve, given that they were so slow.

However, she couldn't celebrate yet. That was only the first step of the plan.

Keeping her head low, she went in a half-circle around them, ending up with her back to the trap's tile once again, but without a mannequin behind her to ruin things.

[Stay focused. You have a plan, see it through!]

The two mannequins chased her. They swung their weapons mechanically, making stiff movements that slowly brought them closer, and closer, until...

[Now!]

Neve pressed the trapped tile herself, having gotten a better look at it when the sword mannequin stepped on it and ducked.

The two mannequins stood over her, raising their weapons high in the air.

And then, the rifles fired.

Three shots. Both mannequins received one shot each and dropped their weapons, hitting the floor.

The sword mannequin, having taken a second shot now, died.

EXP Gained: 250

EXP: 251/210

Level Up!

The ax mannequin, however, was only reduced to the same state as the first one had been before, fallen onto the ground and injured.

Neve stared back at them both.

Her heart was pounding so hard against her chest it may as well have been trying to flee her body. Her hands were trembling, and Neve's eyes remained fixed on their figures.

[I did it.]

She found herself laughing.

[I did it!]

She raised her hands up into the air.

[YES!] She yelled internally. [I-!]

And then one of the archer's arrows hit her left arm.

Her left arm was nearly ripped off from the impact. Literally. It was hanging by a thread of flesh.

Neve gasped.

"AGH!"

And then, she screamed.

It was, without a doubt, one of the worst pains she'd ever felt. Perhaps the only worse pain was the one she'd just gone through prior to this, having been shot in the chest.

She hit the ground, holding her arm.

Instinctively, she cast {Sacred Ground} and {Healing Ground} back-to-back.

The archer just kept shooting where her hand had been, its arrows bouncing off the wall, almost as though it was mocking her.

"You fucking douchebag!" She let out spitefully, before crawling over to the railing while the healing rune under her did its job.

This was why celebrating too early was a bad thing. Now, she knew!

Now, the next thing she needed to work on was: remembering important details. Such as, for example, the fact that the ax mannequin was still alive.

As the ax mannequin slowly tried to get up, from her position, Neve tried to ignore her arm and fired off an {Iceball} at it.

[The trap did so much damage to it that it probably shouldn't be able to take even a beginner-level spell. So, maybe it has all its points in-]

Her spell had very little effect.

[What?]

As the ax mannequin continued to stand, rolling into an upright position, albeit more slowly now thanks to the ice, she switched to {Waterball}. Maybe it was an elemental resistance problem.

But, no. That spell dealt the same small amount of damage, as the ax mannequin barely reacted.

[... Why?] She thought before the answer came to her almost immediately.

She stared at the spot on the wall where the rifles were and whispered:

"The trap's damage is percentage based."

It was a concept in many games like Legends of Overcraft, which Neve used to play.

Maximum health damage.

Instead of a move, ability, or in this case, a trap, dealing a flat number of damage, it would deal a percentage of the target's maximum HP as damage.

It was a type of damage specifically meant to deal with tanks, generally.

In this new world, under the Unity Trials, everyone had been given an Endurance attribute. That stat had granted everyone a sort of "invisible HP bar", that one could increase by leveling up that attribute.

Because people couldn't see it, anyone who wasn't a tank and didn't have a high Endurance attribute tended to treat fights as though they were just like they were before the Unity Trials. As in, they would assume things like, "oh, if this arrow hits me in the head, it will probably kill me instantly."

But, it was still there.

That meant that percentage-based damage was possible, and it seemed that this trap was designed with that mechanic.

Probably so that the trap would remain threatening to any high-level players with a bunch of points in their Endurance who entered this dungeon and stumbled upon this trap.

Looking at the two mannequins, and having tasted one of the trap's gunshots herself, she guessed it must be designed to deal around 80% of its target's max health as damage.

Which would explain why Neve wasn't doing anything with her spells. The mannequins were, in actuality, quite tanky. It was just that the trap didn't mind that too much.

Thankfully, the ax mannequin was still in a position to get hit by the trap.

As quickly as she could, disregarding her injured arm for a moment, Neve crawled over and pressed down on the tile again.

The guns fired. The ax mannequin was struck and it too fell back, dead.

Neve let her body fall, ignoring the EXP message over her, feeling like she was so tired she could sleep for hours.

All while that archer continued firing off arrows into the wall.

[.... AREN'T YOU EVER GOING TO RUN OUT OF ARROWS!? COME ON ALREADY!]