Heroic Chronicle of the Reincarnated Demon General

Chapter 17

Luke and Judith continued heading through the dungeon, fighting more monsters made out of tree bark, which they’d unanimously decided to call Barkmen.

Eventually, they reached the end of the dungeon floor’s long corridor, where the passage opened into a small clearing, with a giant hole in the wall that was tall enough to serve as a doorway at the opposite end.

A few meters in front of the opening stood a Barkman about two meters tall, silently staring at the ground.

As with every fight before this, Luke and Judith dropped their bags first, before stepping into the clearing, and the moment they entered, the tall Barkman's eyes began to glow.

[My child... To think I'd end up cursed to take on this abominable form,] it said. [If only I could see my child one last time.]

“!”

Judith's eyes widened when she heard the voice which came from the creature.

She’d already expected that this Barkman would be different from the others they'd encountered, but not in such a manner.

Unlike the other Barkmen, which only made strange noises, this one could actually talk, and the words coming from its mouth made her frown.

"Child?” she muttered. “Was that thing…human?"

Seeing the way her expression changed, Luke exhaled softly before speaking.

"Now then, my dear Judith, if there's one thing you should be most worried about both in and outside a dungeon, it's the words of any monster that can speak."

Judith's eyes immediately snapped towards Luke when he said that, but instead of chastising her for taking her attention away from the opponent in front of them, he kept speaking, warning her.

"Certain monsters evolved to be able to speak so they can increase their chances of taking out their prey,” he said. “Putting it bluntly, ninety percent of the time a monster says something to tug on your heartstrings, it's very likely lying."

The instant Luke finished speaking, the Barkman suddenly leapt at them, closing the distance of several metres in a single leap.

It raised both hands covered in thorny protrusions and swung them in a crossing motion towards the teenagers' heads, but Luke and Judith immediately jumped backwards to avoid the attack.

Luke summoned several magic arrows and fired them at the Barkman, all of which were blocked by it raising one of its arms.

Judith dashed towards the monster from the side and slashed at its ankle, employing a tactic she’d used against several other Barkmen along the way, cutting their legs to bring them down.

This time, however, her blade only cut halfway through before stopping.

‘It’s thick!’

Judith quickly pulled her dagger free and retreated before the monster turned towards her and swung its enormous hand through the air, aiming for her head.

Taking advantage of the opening she'd created, Luke fired several magic arrows at the injured leg, piercing through the remaining wood and completely severing it.

The Barkman immediately lost its balance and fell, bringing its head closer to the ground, and Judith seized the opportunity to jump onto its back and stab her dagger into the back of its head.

She dragged her blade downward, attempting to cut through its wooden body, but even with the extra magic she infused into her weapon, the monster's body proved far too difficult to cut through.

Judith had already anticipated this difficulty after seeing how hard it was to cut through the monster's ankle, so she didn't hesitate to pull her dagger free and jump backwards before the Barkman could raise its upper body and knock her off.

‘This thing's not going to die easily, is it?’

She had that thought while glaring at it, and just as it turned to face her, Luke's magic arrows pierced the wound she'd created in the back of its head, causing the Barkman to release a strange roar.

Despite its injured leg, the monster still turned towards Luke and charged at him, swinging one enormous hand in his direction.

Because of its limp, the attack was unbalanced, making it easy for Luke to dodge and fire magic arrows into its shoulder, while Judith stabbed its chest from behind, cutting into the wooden surface before pulling her dagger free and attacking the same area again.

The creature tried to turn towards her, but Luke fired a magic arrow into one of its eyes, provoking a terrible screech from the monster.

Judith pulled her dagger free and stepped back to avoid its flailing arms, and Luke followed up with a barrage of arrows to its face, several of them piercing the damaged eye.

The creature screeched and tried to rush at Luke, but the moment it raised its leg, Judith grabbed it from behind and pulled it back, tripping the monster and making it fall face-first onto the ground.

She immediately jumped onto the fallen monster and stabbed her dagger into the back of its head, infusing her arms with all her magic power to increase her strength and drive the blade so deep that its hilt made contact with the monster’s bark-like skin.

The monster screeched and twitched before eventually going still.

Judith pulled out her dagger and backed away, watching it warily until Luke raised his hand and spoke.

“It’s dead.”

His confirmation made her exhale softly as her tense shoulders lowered.

Compared to their previous encounters, the battle had been shorter, but the Barkman's unusual durability had made it much more difficult to kill.

Judith cast a glance at the door in the wooden wall at the edge of the clearing before asking, "That's the door that leads to the next floor of the dungeon, right?"

"Yes, that's right," Luke responded.

At this, Judith heaved a tired sigh before saying, "It's been hours, and we've only just finished the first floor."

Hearing her words, Luke raised an eyebrow and turned towards her before saying, "Do not let any other beginner adventurer hear what you just said."

His words made her blink in confusion, so he decided to clear up her misconception.

"Beginner dungeon explorers with the Levels we had when we stepped in here usually don't clear the first floors of dungeons this quickly. We're anomalies.”

Raising his hand, he began counting with his fingers. “Our Hero Skills make us level up faster than normal people, which allows us to take on stronger monsters sooner. We also have stat boosts that make us stronger than our Levels would normally suggest.

When you combine all those factors with my magic abilities that no one on my level would have and your frankly ridiculous combat instincts, the result is that we're clearing the first floor of a dungeon in a couple of hours when it would normally take other people at our Level days."

"Is that so?" Judith muttered.

"That is so," Luke responded before walking past the Barkman's corpse and heading towards the door at the edge of the clearing.

Judith raised an eyebrow, about to ask why he wasn't going back to retrieve their bags before heading to the next floor, but Luke proceeded to do something even stranger.

He conjured a long rod with magic power, one approximately two meters in length, and began using it to poke around the edges of the door.

Judith stared at him in confusion as he did this, hitting every area around the door until he hit the spot directly above the door’s centre, and a soft clicking sound echoed through the clearing.

Immediately afterwards, the ceiling above the door collapsed, and a wooden chest entangled in vines fell from above.

"A Treasure chest?!" Judith exclaimed in surprise.

Luke nodded once, then sharpened the end of his magic-formed rod, using it to cut through the vines so the treasure chest could fall onto the ground below.

He then cut away the remaining vines and knocked them aside before turning towards Judith and explaining, "Those vines are poisonous."

At his words, Judith's expression changed, and she immediately asked, "So the treasure chest was a trap?"

"No, it's a genuine treasure chest,” Luke replied, shaking his head. “I don’t sense any magic power suggesting that it's a monster pretending to be a treasure chest, and there don't seem to be any magical traps inside it either. The vines entangling the chest, however, were poisonous."

He scattered the magic power he'd used to create the rod before finally returning to the corridor to retrieve their bags.

After bringing them into the clearing and setting them down, he walked over to the treasure chest and opened it, doing so from the side just in case anything flew out or shot towards him.

Seeing that nothing of the sort happened, he leaned forward to look inside, and at the bottom of the wooden box were several dozen coins, a mix of bronze, silver and even a gold coin.

Alongside the money were several weapons, a few small daggers and a sword with a little blood on its sheath.

Judith walked over and peeked inside the chest, her eyes widening at the sight of the gold coin. But when she looked towards the sword and noticed the blood on its sheath, she immediately frowned.

“Why is there blood on the sword?"

"Because the blood of the person who probably owned this sword splashed onto it when they died," Luke responded with a casual shrug.