1% Lifesteal

While Freddy was absolutely not willing to get the boy tzenekite equipment, he had decided to splurge a little extra on an unimbued inscribed helmet. It held a single major rune of hardness, and once it emptied, it would take eons for it to recharge. Well… that was a bit of an exaggeration, but it would definitely take a few days at least.

"How do I look?" Lucas asked, shooting Freddy a fat grin through the helmet\'s visor.

"Lookin\' really out of place," Freddy joked.

"Ha, ha." Lucas sighed, pulling on the light armor, which looked a bit oversized. "Are you sure this is the right size?"

"Hey, it\'s better to buy a bit larger now and fill it in than to constantly get it adjusted," Freddy said seriously. "You\'ll be training and building muscle, and you might even have a bit of growth left in you. Trust me when I say you should look to keep equipment maintenance to the minimum. That stuff gets pricey, fast."

Lucas nodded severely.

With the armor out of the way, they had only one thing left to pick up.

A weapon.

Rather than pay an exorbitant sum for something fancy, Freddy bought the boy a plain, cheap spear. Spears were easy to pick up, making them a great choice for someone who hadn\'t yet settled on a weapon.

With that out of the way, they left the building.

Freddy pulled out the motorcycle and sat down.

Riding this thing was ridiculously fun. It produced a loud, high-pitched buzzing sound as it moved, making it stand out and inviting the gazes of onlookers.

Lucas was still scared while riding, as evidenced by the fact that he was hugging Freddy like his life depended on it.

A quick drive through the city later, they pulled up to the plaza surrounding the passage.

Immediately, a large number of people turned to look at them.

"Hey, isn\'t that Slave?" someone asked their friend.

"Holy crap, you\'re right!"

"Who is that beside him?"

"No clue, man. I\'ve never seen him."

Ever since the Fortress Dungeon run, where he fended off an army by himself, Freddy had become something of a local celebrity. Rumors spread incredibly fast, no doubt originating from the weaker delvers Freddy had saved on that day.

They had spread the monicker "Slave," a pseudonym he had used on that run, and that seemed to be the only name people currently knew him by.

While Freddy was aware of this, he had been clueless as to just how far these rumors had spread during the last two weeks of seclusion.

As he and Lucas made their way down the plaza and towards the passage, the number of people gawking at them numbered in… almost everyone, actually.

Lucas looked like he would die of shame, and honestly, Freddy wasn\'t much better off. This was admittedly unpleasant. Fame was excellent and all, but standing out so much was something he would rather avoid. Unfortunately, that ship had clearly sailed.

Some people even decided to follow them into the passage. This was where Freddy drew a line. "Hey," he called as he turned to face the small crowd behind him. "Unless you just happen to be heading in the same direction, I highly recommend you stop following us."

A storm of mumbled apologies came from the group of curious delvers, most of them younger, independent one-stars. They scattered like cockroaches when the couch was lifted, and moments later, Freddy and Lucas were left alone.

As soon as they made it through another passage, Freddy called on Bloodshed, releasing it and having it take a look around. It found nobody secretly following them. Good.

Before long, they reached the entrance to the Fortress Dungeon.

The schedule was predictable and simple to track—every six hours, one run ended, and another one started. They arrived ten minutes before the start of a run, but the sight that welcomed them left Freddy scowling.

There were only a handful of delvers waiting there. Well, there were many weaker folk, but only a few among them were real professionals.

Given that Freddy didn\'t even recognize anyone and only two of them were two-stars—early two-stars—at that, it was safe to say that this wasn\'t the most powerful group to ever enter this dungeon.

And the people there knew it.

Seeing the lack of proper powerhouses, the two-stars got up and walked away. Just a single Freddy wasn\'t enough to take on the latter waves.

Seeing the two-stars get up and leave, the more powerful one-stars quickly followed, and before long, even the weaker delvers were waking up to the fact that this would most likely be an empty run.

Freddy was also about to leave, but then he got an idea.

It wasn\'t really about him today, was it?

He turned to face Lucas. He grinned under the helmet. "Hey, buddy…" he called teasingly. "Looks like we\'re going in alone."

"What?" Lucas asked, clearly bewildered. "What? What!?" Each "what" was more confused and distressed than the one before it. "No, no, no, you\'re kidding! Doesn\'t this dungeon take an army of people to beat it!? And you want to go in with just the two of us!? No! Hell no!"

Freddy chuckled. "Relax, you silly goose. The dungeon operates by sending waves of opponents. All we have to do is tie one of them up at the start, then we can do the first wave with peace of mind. It\'s only against mortals. With me to defend you, you have nothing to fear."

"Ha… Haha." Lucas chuckled, looking like his face was draining of all color. "I don\'t like this."

"Well too bad. You gotta get some experience. Come on, we\'re not heading back home like losers. Man up." He patted Lucas on the back. The boy swallowed and started walking.

"Halt!" the guards shouted as they crossed their halberds. "What\'s your name, soldier!?"

"Slave," Freddy said, waving Lucas forward. "Come on, you\'re next."

Lucas gulped and took a step forward.

"Halt!" the guards shouted.

"I\'m Lucas! Lucas Black," the boy said as he lifted his hands to cover his face.

"Fight hard, Lucas Black!" one of the soldiers said as they uncrossed their weapons and allowed Lucas through.

On the other side, Freddy was dying of laughter. "Oh, man! I\'ve never seen someone shit themselves at the gate like that!"

"You…!" Lucas yelled, his face turning beet red. "Whatever! Let\'s just go and kill the… oh, man…"

"Hahaha, relax, we have another half an hour to go. Come on, let me show you around."

Freddy took Lucas on a small tour, showing him the towers and the respawning weapon racks. The young man was particularly fascinated by the infinitely respawning weapons. Even Freddy thought those were cool as hell.

"Hey, if you don\'t want that spear, you can try one of these," Freddy said as he pointed at the rack of weapons.

"No… I\'ll stick to this for now."

"Suit yourself."

They climbed up one of the towers. The view was equal parts stunning and intimidating. The dark shadows in the surrounding forest ominously foretold the danger that was to come.

Freddy headed downstairs and walked up to the weapon rack. Lucas watched him go with a raised eyebrow. "What are you doing?"

"I\'m gonna collect some ammo," Freddy said.

Knowing Freddy\'s absolutely horrible luck, something could always go to shit. For him, given how many times he got to learn this lesson, accounting for things going horribly wrong was already becoming a habit.

He walked up to the weapon rack and looked it over.

The most obvious thing that could go wrong was that he could somehow fail to stop the waves from coming. In that case, the thing he feared the most was siege equipment.

For him personally, anything before wave five could hardly threaten him. But Lucas was a different story. Even if he tried to hide, there was always the chance that the siege equipment could endanger him.

The choice, then, was obvious—he would take the catapult boulders. They were made of exceptionally dense stone and just small enough for him to fit eight or nine in his storage ring.

Before stashing them away, he decided to cover them with a layer of blood. This wouldn\'t really add anything other than the ability to use Accelerate Blood Projectile on them. And even this wasn\'t really a huge deal.

The main reason why it wasn\'t going to make a big difference was the way Accelerate Blood Projectile worked. It cost roughly 0.5% essence per kilogram of blood it accelerated. There was very little blood on these boulders, which meant that the ability wouldn\'t really have a tremendous impact. Every bit helped, though.

After shuffling his stuff a bit, he managed to fit ten of them into the ring.

Even after finishing with that, he proceeded to grab the bags of spiky metal bits and spill them all across the battlements. If someone made it up to the walls, he wanted to make their life as difficult as possible.

"What are you doing?" Lucas asked while cautiously stepping around the metal bits.

"Preparing."

"For what?"

Freddy turned around and chuckled. "Don\'t worry about it, champ."

Lucas groaned. "That does not ease my nerves, Freddy."

Freddy simply chuckled in response.

If he had more than half an hour, he would have done even more to prepare. But alas.

The white-bearded monk guy appeared. "Attention, defenders! We are under attack!"

"Follow me," Freddy said as he carefully walked over to the closest tower. They hid inside and waited for a while.

"I will drink from your skull!" someone shouted.

"Keep no prisoners!"

"Their bones will decorate my armor!"

Lucas shivered as he heard the voices. "Holy crap…" he muttered, clearly panicking. Freddy put a hand on his shoulder. "Relax. They aren\'t so bad. You\'ll see."

"Pike their heads!"

Lucas whimpered. "Not so sure about that."

The sound of a metal hook latching onto the nearby parapet made Lucas nearly jump out of his skin as he screamed.

"I hear them! The enemy is hiding in the tower!"

"What is this? Hahahaha, is there just a little girl defending the fort!?"

"The kingdom has already fallen!"

Lucas grabbed Freddy\'s arm. "Can I go back home?"

A moment later, one of the men—a barely-clothed barbarian hauling a rusty axe—climbed up the rope and made it onto the battlements. He turned to face them. A wicked grin split his face apart as he raised his axe and rushed at them.

Freddy simply stepped forward, slapped the axe out of the way, and punched the guy. The punch really didn\'t seem all that impressive, but the man\'s eyes glazed over as if a brick had fallen off the top of a building and struck his head.

Ignoring the man as he dropped to the ground, Freddy grabbed the hook the man used to climb up the wall and pulled the length of rope up. One of the attackers had been in the middle of trying to climb it, but Freddy simply kicked him off.

Then he tied the other man up and left him in a corner of the tower where nothing could hurt him.

"There we go," he said as he picked Lucas up.

"Whoa!" the boy yelped. "What are you… oh no—" his words were cut off by an involuntary scream as Freddy proceeded to jump off the battlements and down into a small crowd of men.

"So you cowards come out to face us! Meet your—" The man\'s words were cut short as Freddy kicked him in the stomach. The attacker spat out a large, bloody chunk of something that looked important and promptly died.

Freddy put Lucas down.

Lucas held his spear with shaky hands. His knees looked like they would buckle at any moment.

"You\'re gonna have to calm down, Lucas," Freddy said as he kicked another man away and slapped the ghost out of a third.

Before long, nothing but a pile of dead bodies was left.

There were plenty of men coming from literally everywhere around them, though.

A few of the bastards standing at range used slingshots to throw rocks at them. The rocks bounced off of them, but even though they couldn\'t hurt them through the armor, Lucas still acted like every rock that hit him was a damn ballista bolt, yelping and shouting in imaginary pain.

Lucas had decided to step on the path of fighting to survive. Freddy had no intention of coddling him. This lifestyle was dangerous. Getting hurt or even dying wasn\'t a rare occurrence. He needed to learn that this wasn\'t a game, and he needed to learn that lesson as quickly as possible.

Freddy kept Lucas safe for the most part, but every so often, he\'d disarm one of the men and send them to the boy.

At first, Lucas could barely even stand his ground. More than once, an opponent wrestled his spear away, forcing Freddy to step in and help.

But as this kept happening, Lucas gradually calmed down.

With Freddy there, the actual danger was minimal. And the young man was starting to realize this. Surprisingly quickly, actually.

Before long, Lucas started fighting back. Ineffectually at first, likely as he still struggled to see his enemies as just monsters created by the dungeon rather than real people. Any time he successfully injured an opponent, for a moment, he\'d look like he was about to apologize, but that reflex slowly started to fade.

In the face of endless taunting and aggression, nobody would remain apologetic for long.

Freddy grabbed one of the men by his arm, pulling the sharp stick out of his grip, and then pushed him over to Lucas.

The attacker immediately lunged at Lucas with the intent to steal his spear, but the boy pulled it back. No matter how the man tried, he simply couldn\'t get a hold of Lucas\'s weapon.

Lucas was fast. Really fast. The effect of his talent was super obvious. He pulled his spear back and then, in the flash of an eye, thrust it forward, poking his opponent in the rib and pulling the weapon back before he could react.

This was the advantage a talent provided. This was why they mattered so much. They didn\'t require endless practice to acquire and utilize—they simply made a difference.

To Freddy\'s surprise—no, to his genuine shock—Lucas really wasn\'t a terrible fighter. The boy had a knack for it. He was a bit too defensive and clearly thought too much about when he should strike, but that would go away with experience. For the time being, he was doing great. He was more talented than Freddy was when he started; that much was certain.

As yet another surprise, Lucas revealed that he could already manipulate essence well enough to simulate a primitive Tectonic Strike with raw manipulation.

Then, with a loud shout, he thrust his spear right into the man\'s eye, finally killing one of his opponents. Lucas was clearly disturbed by the sight, but Freddy didn\'t give him the time to process it.

Seeing the boy\'s performance, Freddy finally let someone with a weapon through. The man carried a simple wooden stick, but even that put Lucas on edge.

However, it wasn\'t enough to completely discourage him. Having already defeated an opponent, there was a clear shift in Lucas\'s body language.

If I stab hard enough, you\'ll die, his body said as he gripped the spear shaft and leaned forward, getting into a crude stance.

Just like this, the fight proceeded smoothly. They kept going for a while, until Freddy saw Lucas reach complete exhaustion. Then, without further ado, he killed the remaining men off.

As soon as he finished the last opponent off, Freddy could immediately tell that something was wrong.

A rumbling came from the distance.

"Son of a fucking bitch!" he shouted. "Why didn\'t I leave another one alive!?"

"What?" Lucas asked as he took an anxious step back. "What\'s happening?"

"Don\'t worry," Freddy said. "I\'m just a dumbass. We\'re gonna have to clear another wave."

"We\'ll what!?" Lucas shouted.

"I\'ll take care of this one. I don\'t expect you to get involved."

Freddy picked Lucas up and, with a double-star Hydraulic Flex, jumped back up to the battlements.

He walked into the nearest tower and quickly glanced at the invader he had previously taken prisoner. His best guess was that the man had died from something like a brain bleed because Freddy punched him too hard.

But as he took a closer look, he noticed something disturbing.

There was a faint red line around the man\'s neck.

Someone had strangled him.