It didn't take long to deal with the rest of the dungeoneers. With three skeletons attacking her from all sides, the woman who I suspected to be a summoner didn't last long, especially after I put the blade of the axe into her back. From there, the formation of the newer dungeoneers crumbled, with one of them trying to run away. Too bad for them that the dead don't get tired, and are capable of sprinting for as long as necessary.

Granted, I didn't like how my chest currently looked, when I finally did get a chance to look at it. There was a gaping hole in the center of my ribcage, with several ribs missing completely.

Status.

Name: Broken Skull 1:33 AM Race: Undead Sub-race: Skeleton Class: N/A Sub-class: N/A Level: 6 Available Skill Points: 4

Hp: 41/100

Mp: 12/12

Stamina: N/A

Head: Healthy

Torso: Severely Injured

Left Arm: Slightly Injured

Right Arm: Healthy

Left Leg: Healthy

Right Leg: Healthy

Buffs:

Debuffs:

I didn't realize my left arm had been hurt during the fight, but when I looked at it, I saw some stress fractures along my wristbones.

Probably from stopping that last swing. Didn't realize he was strong enough to break bones with just body alone. Guess it's a good thing I won, then.

There was also the axe itself. It hurt when it hit me the second time. If it was the axe that was special, then it wouldn't have only hurt the second time it hit, and it would've hurt much worse the first time. I felt the need to figure this out, and mentally groaned as I walked over to Lilith, who had gotten her sword stuck in the summoner's corpse.

"I need to figure something out. Punch me in the ribs." She looked up at me for a moment, and I swore she almost looked confused at the request. A second later, she slammed her fist into my ribcage, and my entire torso felt like it was on fire.

...Status.

Name: Broken Skull 1:33 AM Race: Undead Sub-race: Skeleton Class: N/A Sub-class: N/A Level: 6 Available Skill Points: 4

Hp: 32/100

Mp: 12/12

Stamina: N/A

Head: Healthy

Torso: Severely Injured

Left Arm: Slightly Injured

Right Arm: Healthy

Left Leg: Healthy

Right Leg: Healthy

Buffs:

Debuffs:

A single punch had done about nine damage, and I had felt it.

Fuck. Either make it hurt in the first place, or don't make it hurt at all! Damn piece of shit system... Gonna rip the throat out of the fucking developer...

I could only guess that I would feel pain in the areas that had already been damaged. I didn't want to test that theory anymore, since it had hurt so much the first time. For now, I'd just try not to get hit until I got back to Rivena.

Wish it was the damn axe that hurt so bad. The thing has fucking filigree! It should be special!

If there was a way to appraise an item, I sure as hell didn't know it. I'd already tried saying every type of appraisal word I could think of, and none of them worked. I'd probably learn how to do it later from some other monster, who would definitely be laughing at my stupidity. Then I'd probably have to kill them out of shame.

We grabbed the corpses, with three of the skeletons cleaning up the blood that had already begun pooling on the ground. I myself picked up the few pieces of myself that I could find, in the hopes that Rivena might be able to mend my broken torso, before collecting my short sword as well.

Once we had everything, we started trudging back toward home. Lilith fell into step beside me.

"I'm surprised you took on another dungeoneer alone. You seem to have a habit of getting yourself into dangerous situations." Her voice was tinged with a bit of mirth, which almost set me off, considering I'd gotten my ribs broken despite wearing armor.

"Gets me a chance at gaining more strength. Something I noticed your people seem to be lacking a little bit of. They need more training, or they need to take more risks. They'll never get stronger if they don't work for it." I grumbled a response, to which she gave a grunt of acknowledgement.

"Just don't get yourself killed by one of those 'chances.' It might not seem like it to you, but we are comrades after all. You shouldn't try to do everything alone. Just because you were the one to gather us doesn't mean you can handle everything without relying on us." Her tone wasn't soft, yet it wasn't entirely firm either. The words did make sense, but I still wasn't sure how she could back them up, since she'd had trouble even though she'd had help with the summoner. The others weren't much better, as three new dungeoneers managed to hold them back for a time.

"If you want to help me, get stronger. I can't rely on those who can't keep up." I shrugged as I spoke. I didn't mean to be harsh, but that was the reality of things. If my companions weren't strong enough to help me fight, I'd end up having to protect them while fighting some potentially lethal enemy. I couldn't afford to have my comrades holding me back in a real fight.

Lilith's shoulders slumped a bit, although it wasn't very noticeable to me. There wasn't much I could, or would, say to console her, as it had been a simple statement, yet the blow it dealt couldn't be argued against, or softened. Strength was everyone's goal, after all.

Strength was also the reason I wanted to get out of the dungeon. I felt like I was suffocating down here under the immense pressure of everything being out to kill me. The law of the jungle was a damn nightmare.

All of a sudden I remembered a small snippet of information. I couldn't remember what or where it came from, but I did remember what it was capable of. A simple formation that could be used to make the innate weakness of the skeletons much less pronounced. It took several minutes to formulate a rough idea of what I was going to try in the coming weeks.

"The next Combat Team will be under my command. If the idea I've had works, then we'll have much less need for individual strength. At least, we'll have less need for it against archers and warriors. Mages however, are another thing we'll have to prepare for." I uttered the words suddenly, although nobody showed any surprise at the sudden speech.

"Again, you don't have to do it alone. If it doesn't require strength, then why not rely on the rest of us to help you carry it out?" Lilith retorted rather quickly. I had no immediate response for her, which she seemed to take as her victory, since she chuckled lightly.

"Fine. I'll need your Combat Team for the test run. We don't have nearly enough for what will need to be done in the future, however. So don't think that you'll be able to use this as an effective tactic with only the twelve of you." I grunted my agreement, just as we turned into the hall that held our secret home.

Luckily, nobody had found it yet, although I assumed that was likely to change in the future. Thinking about it, I fully expected it to happen at some point while I would be away, because that's normally how a story might go, considering it could make for quite a bit of drama.

However, that wasn't the case here, as we opened up our home, and headed inside. Being meticulous sure helped, since we weren't seeing any more strong dungeoneers wandering around looking for us.

No blood, no body, no crime.

Rivena chose to take a look at me first, due to the fact that I was holding pieces of my ribcage. Of course, she scolded me about getting myself horribly injured time after time.

"I swear, it's like you get injured every time you leave! Can't you make my job easier for once, so I don't have to worry about you, and I can focus on everyone else too?" Her words cut almost as deep as the axe did, and I stayed silent as she took the pieces of my ribcage, and used her healing magic to restore me.

As it turned out, so long as I had the broken pieces, normal healing magic could actually mend the breaks. However, she couldn't regrow bones that were completely lost, as I found out when I didn't have three pieces of ribs for my ribcage. Before she healed my arm however, I had her strike it lightly. It hurt, but after she healed it, it didn't hurt again when she struck it in the same spot, with the same level of force, although it did bring my hp down by a single point.

Guess being injured means pain for every time I'm hit afterwards. Fantastic. That's another inconvenience to add to the list of annoyances.

Soon after I was healed, Rivena had to recover her mana, and the others still needed their own healing sessions, so I sat down on the bed I'd essentially claimed as my own. Inspecting the axe, it seemed the filigree itself didn't reach all the way to the blade. Instead, it was only at the very head of the axe, with the handle itself having only a simple grip. The metal itself was of good quality, a fact I realized by seeing that the blade hadn't dulled at all, despite hitting me rather hard. It didn't look like it had any special magics imbued into it, but for all I knew, it could very well have just been the axe-wielder's paperweight. Either way, it didn't matter to me. Since I no longer had a shield, I would be using both the axe and the short sword.

I'd grown accustomed to my rather savage fighting style, which consisted of me simply attacking over and over again until the enemy could no longer keep up. It had worked so far, so why stop now?

The five new recruits were still here, and had formed their own small group that sat near the door, the spot where the scouts normally were. I didn't bother telling them, as they'd find out sooner or later. For now, I stared at them while thinking of the new formation that I'd be testing soon enough, in the hopes that we'd be able to use it to make up for our own weaknesses.

If it worked, we'd be able to move down to the fourth floor soon enough.